Ithaca College Theatre to Present Three One-Act Operas

Ithaca College Theatre and the Ithaca College School of Music will team up to offer six presentations in the Hoerner Theatre of Three Operas, a compilation of one-act operas by Mozart (The Impresario), Samuel Barber (A Hand of Bridge), and Ralph Vaughan Williams (Riders to the Sea). Following a preview performance on Wednesday, February 13, the operas will be staged on February 15, 19, 21, and 23. Curtain time is 8:00 p.m., with an additional 2:00 p.m. matinee on Sunday, February 17.

Tickets can be purchased at the Ithaca College Theatre ticket office in Dillingham Center, the Clinton House ticket center, and Cornell University’s Willard Straight Hall. Prices range from $3.50 to $9.00. The College’s ticket office is open Monday through Friday, noon to 5:00 p.m., starting February 4. For information call 274-3224. Discounts are available for groups of 15 or more by calling 274-3796.

Mozart’s Impresario takes a comic tone toward opera itself, while Barber’s A Hand of Bridge creates a window into unspoken thoughts. Three Operas concludes with Vaughan Williams’s Riders to the Sea, a story that centers on a family’s lament for sons lost at sea.

The productions are being directed by assistant professor of opera and musical theater Patrick Hansen, who has adapted The Impresario for a contemporary audience. "The intent of The Impresario was to poke fun at actors, singers, the audience, and the theater business in 18th-century Europe," Hansen says. "I have let that intent guide me in this new adaptation. These characters are all people that I have met or worked with during my career as an audition pianist, rehearsal pianist, and opera conductor in the last decade."

A Hand of Bridge serves as an emotional bridge, he says. At times comic, at others tragic, it helps move the tenor of the evening from the light-hearted Impresario to the utterly grief-filled end of Riders to the Sea. "The characters in A Hand of Bridge all have something to share," Hansen says. "Unfortunately, they can’t share it with each other. The text of this unique mini-opera was written by Gian Carlo Menotti and the music by Samuel Barber --- two operatic giants of the 20th century."

Riders to the Sea has a connection to a great literary tradition: It is based on the play of the same name by Irish dramatist John Millington Synge. "Vaughan Williams has caught Synge’s textual bleakness in a net of simple vocal lines supported by a warm orchestral wash of color," Hansen says. "And it is this musical combination that allows the characters’ desperate and tragic situation to find resonance."

Hansen has conducted both operas and musicals for Ithaca College Theatre, including Parade, L’incoronazione di Poppea, A Little Night Music, and Albert Herring. He was stage director for the opera workshop’s recent production of The Magic Flute and was the director and creator of the workshop’s productions of The Many Faces of Love and Sister Angelica.

The cast for Three Operas includes Sonia Rodriguez Bermejo ’02, Josh Bouchard ’04, Amanda Capone ’02, Sean Robert Clark ’04, Scott England ’03, Ivy Gaibel ’02, Whitney Guy ’04, Jermaine Levon Hill ’02, Meagan Johnson ’02, Jessica Julin ’02, Elissa K. Levitt ’02, Christopher Martin ’04, Thomas C. Morris ’03, Michael Nyby ’05, Kristen L. Robinson ’02, Rebecca Sach ’02, Elisa Sciscioli ’02, Edwin Vega ’02, and Marc Webster ’02.

In addition to Hansen, the artistic staff includes lighting designers Tyler Elich ’02, Adrianna Durantt ’04, Claire Mokrauer-Madden ’04, and Rose Howard ’04; stage manager Becky Sumsky ’02; costume designer Kevin Wolfgang; and scenic coordinator Colin Stewart.