The Fall Lecture Series of the San José Opera Guild begins before Labor Day this year. We have a wonderful collection of presentations on operas that will be performed in the Bay Area, particularly, San Francisco Opera, Opera San José and West Bay Opera. All of these presentation will be from 10:00AM to 12:00 Noon at a new venue, the Addison Penzak Jewish Community Center Silicon Valley in Los Gatos. This site, which is on Oka Road just off the intersection of Highway 17 and Lark Road is easy to find and get to.
The season begins on Tuesday, August 30 with a lecture by Timothy Flynn on Turandot by Puccini. Turandot is Puccini’s last opera and one of his greatest. It tells the story of a Prince that comes to win the icy Princess that chops the heads off suitors that fail her test of three riddles and the slave girl who loves that Prince but sacrifices her life that he may live. And, of course, there is the aria, “Nessun Dorma” which Pavarotti did much to popularize. Our lecturer is Timothy Flynn, who last lectured to us on Madama Butterfly in 2010 and Il Trittico in 2009. He currently holds the chair of Performing Arts at Olivet College (which is between Lansing and Battle Creek, Michigan). He directs choral groups, and the opera and musical theater performances on campus and also plays the organ. He has published recent books on Saint- Saëns and Gounod.
To top of page Following that lecture, on Tuesday, 6 September, Mitchell Morris will speak on Heart of a Soldier by Christopher Theofanidis and Donna Di Novelli. This World Premiere features the real to life story of the Cornish soldier of fortune and Morgan Stanley security chief, Rick Rescorla, his best friend and fellow soldier, Dan Hill, and Susan Rescorla, the love story of his life. The opera builds to September 11, 2001 when Rick manage to get Morgan Stanley’s staff out of the World Trade Center prior to the second plane hitting their building. This is great opera material and promises to be a hit of the season. Mitchell Morris is an expert on 20th and 21st century opera and last spoke to us on Die Tote Stadt in 2008. Mitchell is an associate professor in the Department of Musicology at UCLA.
On Tuesday, 20 September, Mary Ann Smart will speak to us on Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, an opera being done for the first time by San Francisco Opera. This bel canto opera celebrates friendship even to the threat of death. The very name Lucretia Borgia has come to mean poison. Come find out how poison plays in the plot of this opera. We have previously enjoyed Mary Ann’s talk on La Fille du Regiment in 2009. She is the Gladyce Arata Terrill Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley. Smart has published articles on the lives and public images of nineteenth-century female singers, on the ways madness is depicted in opera, on the ways musical performance intersected with polite conversation and political maneuvering in Parisian social life, and on the role of Verdi’s operas played in promoting the Unification of Italy. She has also written articles on Bellini and Donizetti for the revised Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
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On Friday, September 23, we will have the first of our two Season Previews for local opera companies. This preview (on a Friday rather than a Tuesday) will cover the West Bay Opera season. The presentation will begin with an overview of the season by West Bay Opera General Director Jose Luis Moscovich which will be followed by selections from those production sung by singers from West Bay Opera. Following this presentation, attendees are welcome to stay for the regular Kabbalat Shabbat Lunch held once per month at the JCC. The cost is $7 for non-JCC members. For further information and reservations please call Hope at 408.357.7488 or email her at hope@svjcc.org.
Our second season preview will be given by Larry Hancock, General Manager, Opera San José on Tuesday, 23 September. Larry, who has been a regular speaker for many years will give an overview of the then remaining three operas in the Opera San José season and Opera San José singers will be present to provide musical selections. These operas include the double bill Pagliacci and La voix humaine, La Traviata and Faust.
To top of page Our final two San Francisco Opera lectures are in October. Simon Williams will talk about Mozart’s Don Giovanni on 11 October. Will the proud Don win out or will the women he tries to seduce get their revenge. And, will the Don’s servant survive to the end? Scheming, revenge, deception, a walking statue and wonderful music, what can go wrong? Simon has given us a number of lectures and has most recently spoken on Die Walkure and Simon Boccanegra. He has directed several operas at UC Santa Barbara and is widely recognized as an authority on the history of acting and Shakespearean performance, as well as on opera as drama and on the history of operatic staging.
Finally, on 25 October, Bruce Lamott will speak on Serse (or Xerxes) by Handel. This opera is the opera from which Handel’s famous “Largo” is taken. The plot, however, is anything but slow as Xerxes and his brother pursue the same woman, the daughter of one of Xerxes generals. Find out how betrayal comes back to get one. Bruce Lamott has spoken to us a number of times in the past, most recently on Ariodante and Iphigenie en Tauride. Dr. Lamott is director of the Philharmonica Chorale, the professional chorus of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and teaches graduate seminars on the operas of Handel and Mozart at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has also spent 30 years with the Carmel Bach Festival as, variously, choral director, harpsichordist, lecturer, and education director. To top of page
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