Opera Mania: Chamber Music Inspired by Opera
Saturday March 17, 8 pm and Sunday, March 18, 3 pm
Music by Beethoven, Bourne, William Schuman, John Harbison, St. Saëns, Weber and the Doppler Bros.
- Ivan Rosenblum, artistic director and piano
- Kathleen Purcell, flute
- Lars Johannesson, flute
- Judy Roberts, cello
Chamber music and opera melodies on the same program, one inspiring the other? Not possible! Well, check out this concert with its unusual nineteenth and twentieth century arrangements guaranteed to delight opera buffs as they recognize beloved melodies. Even people indifferent to opera’s charms will definitely enjoy our rarely-heard, purely instrumental repertoire played with “operatic” bravura.
Beethoven’s masterful variations on a theme from Mozart’s The Magic Flute for cello and piano will follow thrilling flute pyrotechnics based on themes from Rigoletto and La Sonnambula. A voluntary audience-participation opera quiz based on William Schuman‘s Opera Snatches will afford you the opportunity to win free tickets to an upcoming Chamber Players concert. Lovers of the novel The Great Gatsby will be intrigued by John Harbison’s Gatsby Etudes for Solo Piano based on the composer’s own acclaimed opera, The Great Gatsby. Be there to shout your “Bravi!”
