Editor: Keith Davis Writers: Dave Maley, Mike Warwick Publisher: Office of Public Information Volume 22, No.11   February 14, 2000

Ithaca College Theatre Presents Benjamin Britten’s ‘Albert Herring’ Ithaca College Theatre begins the spring portion of its 1999– 2000 season with Benjamin Britten’s comic opera Albert Herring. This coproduction with the School of Music will present preview performances on Tuesday, February 15, and Wednesday, February 16, at 8:00 p.m. Regular evening performances will run from Thursday, February 17, through Saturday, February 19, at 8:00 p.m. In addition, there will be one matinee on Sunday, February 20, at 2:00 p.m. All performances will take place in the Hoerner Theatre in the Dillingham Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are on sale at the Ithaca College box office, with prices ranging from $3.50 to $9.00. The box office is open from noon to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. For reservations and more information call 274-3224. Directed by Paula Murray Cole, the Ithaca College production of Albert Herring is set in the fictitious East Suffolk village of Loxford in the early 1900s. The opera tells the story of a local boy who is considered virtuous, at least in the eyes of his fellow townspeople, and then decides there are better things in this world than being considered good. As the opera opens, the committee planning Loxford’s May Festival, which is held every year to celebrate female virtue, is discovering there are no suitably chaste May queen candidates. Just when it seems the festival will have to be canceled, the committee decides to elect a May king, with Albert Herring, a shy young man who lives alone with his shopkeeper mother, as the most logical choice. When Albert is notified of the honor — and the cash award that goes with it — he is less excited about it than his mother. He finds himself torn between her approval and the teasing he gets about his lack of experience with girls. Faced with his mother’s apron strings on the one hand and the adventurous way of the world on the other, Albert has to decide whether to be Loxford’s most virtuous citizen or to be himself. Composed in 1947, Albert Herring belongs to a form Benjamin Britten made his own: the chamber opera. While Britten composed a few of his works for the large opera houses, he wrote many of his pieces for relatively small casts and scored them for a chamber orchestra. Albert Herring, in addition to being a fine example of chamber opera, shares a theme with many of Britten’s other works: the individual at odds with the society in which he or she lives. Britten, considered by some to be the most important English composer of opera since Henry Purcell, began his work for the stage in 1939. His long list of operatic credits includes The Rape of Lucretia (1946), Billy Budd (1952), Gloriana (1953), The Turn of the Screw (1954), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960). Britten’s last work for the stage was Death in Venice, composed in 1973. The cast for Albert Herring includes Brian Bohrer ’01 as Albert Herring, Amanda Tafel ’00 as Mrs. Herring, Leon Land Gersing ’00 as Sid, Lucia E. Sanchez ’00 as Nancy, and Tina Batchelder-Schwab ’00 as Lady Billows. The artistic staff includes director Paula Murray Cole, musical director Patrick Hansen, stage manager Hope Rose Kelly ’00, costume designer Shana Skop ’00, scenic designer Tim Owens ’00, lighting designer Jennette Kollmann ’00, and technical director Jon Garcia ’00.   Photo by Rachel Hogancamp: Lucia E. Sanchez ’00, Brian Bohrer ’01, and Leon Land Gersing ’00 in Albert Herring

ITHACA | Back Issues | Table of Contents | NEWS Home | Publication Schedule | Letter to the Editor Created by Andrejs Ozolins. Updated 11.Feb.2000