U of L offers two operas for the price of one
‘dark : light’to be performed Nov. 3-4 at University Recital Hall
The University of Lethbridge Opera Workshop “dark : light” opens next week and will provide opera goers the chance to see two drastically different performances, for the price of one.
The title stemmed from the juxtaposition of the two one-act operas that will be performed.
The night will start off with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Riders to the Sea,” a tragedy based on the Irish play written by J.M. Synge.
The audience will experience loss right from the get-go.
The opera starts off with introducing a mother, who has already lost her husband, father-inlaw and five of her sons to the power of the sea. But there is no happy ending. “The whole opera ends in a very, tragic, dramatic, depressing kind of way,” said director Blaine Hendsbee.
“Then we take intermission and we come back and everything is light and joy.”
The second act, “Ten Belles and No Ring” by Frantz von Suppe is a classic Viennese, one-act operetta.
“It’s very light, it’s very fun, it’s not particularly deep. It’s just supposed to make people laugh and forget their troubles for a while,” said Hendsbee.
The opera is about a father who is desperate to get his 10 unwed daughters married off, Hendsbee explained.
When a gentleman caller finally arrives, each daughter is given some alone time with him, but who will he wed, if any?
“Everyone goes home happy singing lots of hummable tunes,” Hendsbee predicted. “I just couldn’t let them go home depressed.”
“It’s a perfect juxtaposition,” he said, adding there is the dark side of opera — tragic, moving, emotional and draining — and the other side, which is just light and fun.
The reason these two acts were chosen, Hendsbee explained, was to provide students the opportunity to learn how to portray “both of these severe ranges of emotional spectrum,” while leaving the audience exposed to two radically different musical forms.
Hendsbee assures the evening will be a delight for both opera novices and experienced theatre goers.
Both acts will be performed in English, “so there’s no language barrier, which I think scares a lot of people off.”
He suspects that “Riders to the Sea” will draw the audience in.
“It’s just like a fantastic and tragic movie, you’re just pulled in,” he said.
The extreme vocalism involved in “Ten Belles and No Ring” is impressive alone. “It’s just something most people aren’t used to hearing, acoustic voices going at full sale for two-and-a-half octaves; it’s like Olympic athletes, except they’re singing.”
Performances of “dark : light” will take place Nov. 3 and 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the University Recital Hall. Tickets are available online at
www.ulethbridge.ca/tickets, the university box office, or at the Penny building downtown at 324 5 St. S.
Tickets are $20, $15 for seniors and alumni, and $12 for students.
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