Blog – Page 101 – Madison Opera

Weekend happenings

May 7, 2009

Saturday, May 9

Swing by the Overture Center for the Arts between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. for the Overture Open House. Madison Opera will have a booth in the lobby, plus you can observe our crew load in the Faust set on the Overture Hall stage and explore the Center’s diverse performance spaces.
If you’re not downtown, turn on the radio and listen to a broadcast of Madison Opera’s Cosi fan Tutte from March 15! Tune in to WERN 88.7 at 12:30 p.m., or go to the WPR website and listen online.

Sunday, May 10

OPERA UP CLOSE: THE FAUST PREVIEW, 4 – 6 p.m., MMoCA Lecture Hall, $20 Gen. Admission, FREE with student ID. Join General Director Allan Naplan for an engaging, multimedia, behind-the-scenes preview of Gounod’s Faust. Stars of the show David Pittsigner, David Lomeli, and Jill Gardner will be on hand to talk about the production, as will our director Bernard Uzan and conductor Laurent Campellone. There’s no better way to enhance your operatic experience!

General Director Allan Naplan brought Opera Up Close: The Faust Preview to the Capitol Lakes Retirement Community yesterday afternoon along with mezzo-soprano Marie Lenormand, baritone Scott Johnson and accompanist Scott Gendel. The audience was treated to excerpts from Faust by our wonderful singers and learned all about the history and music of Gounod and his opera. Enjoy the pictures! Opera Up Close takes place this weekend on Sunday, May 10 from 4-6 p.m. at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. General admission $20; students get in for free!

Butterfly Broadcast

May 1, 2009

Tomorrow at 12:30 p.m., tune in to Wisconsin Public Radio WERN 88.7 to listen to a broadcast of Madison Opera’s Madama Butterfly, recorded live on Friday, November 21, 2008. If the ovation in Overture Hall that night was any indication, this was a performance to remember, so tune in to recapture the magic of Puccini as sung by Maria Kanyova, Arnold Rawls, Grant Youngblood, and Heather Johnson with the Madison Opera Chorus and Madison Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Leonardo Vordoni. If you’re not in Wisconsin, listen online here (use whichever link from the left column works best for your computer).

REMINDER: Registration for “Explore the Voice” on May 16 closes today, so sign up online now for this free event!

Video: Meet the Faust Cast, Part 1

April 30, 2009

Director Bernard Uzan’s novel

April 29, 2009

Our Faust director Bernard Uzan is a man of many hats. Just glance at his bio and you’ll be overwhelmed; his life work defines the notion of a renaissance man. Case in point, he is now a published novelist. His first book is The Shattered Sky, translated from the French by Robert Miller. Check it out!

I stopped by the end of yesterday’s afternoon rehearsal and everyone was in great spirits. We definitely have an enthusiastic cast on our hands, eager to win over Madison audiences, passionate about exploring every subtlety of Faust. I’ll be posting a video here tomorrow so you can see for yourself.