NMT PAS to Host ‘Night at the Opera’ Friday, April 27

April 23, 2018


Macey Center will host the annual free concert of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentices

 

SOCORRO, N.M. – The phrase “night at the opera” conjures up images of elegantly dressed men and women enjoying a feast for the eyes and the palate prior to joining other audience members for a refined musical interlude.

This is the mood the New Mexico Tech Performing Arts Series (PAS) will try to create when it hosts its own “A Night at the Opera” with an optional dinner and free performance by the Santa Fe Opera Apprentices at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 27, at Macey Center on the university campus.

Publicity photo of the full cast of Santa Fe Opera ApprenticesFestivities get under way in the Macey Center Galena Room with the optional annual “Night at the Opera Dinner.”  Dinner tickets are $17 for members, $22 for non-members, $15 for graduate students, and must be purchased in advance; call 575-835-5688 for information. The evening’s menu features herb-roasted turkey breast, potatoes au gratin, grilled asparagus, garden salad and lemon meringue tartlets.

“Spring evenings are made for romance and music, and why not add a delightful dinner to tie it all together?” noted PAS Director Ronna Kalish. “Chartwells has earned a reputation for its elegant buffets and delicious offerings, from entrees to desserts.”

Ditto for the Santa Fe Opera Apprentices on Tour, a program which generates goodwill for the quality of its repertoire and outreach efforts to bring opera to more rural parts of the state. 

Helping to carry out traditions established by the founder of the Santa Fe Opera, John O. Crosby, are the Apprentice Program for Singers, which has drawn more than 1,500 aspiring vocalists. Many are professional performers; others are teachers and coaches at major opera companies and universities.

 In 1965, the Apprentice Program for Theater Technicians was added, and it too has become an important training tool.

As part of the opera apprentice program, singers observe and collaborate with some of the greatest artists and directors in the opera world.  World-renowned artists Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Nathan Gunn, Larry Brownlee and James Morris; as well as directors, such as Laurent Pelly, Kevin Newbur, and Richard Jones, demonstrate the level of professionalism and artistry it takes to be successful in the opera world.

This year’s operetta, “Trinity,” was commissioned for the Santa Fe Opera’s 50th anniversary and first presented on the 75th commemoration of the development of the atomic bomb.

The story is set in both the present day and during World War II times, at the Trinity Test Site (in our very own Socorro County). Atom, a teenage boy, is placed into a room where an older woman already sits. He was caught trying to take a piece of trinitite rock from the Trinity test site. At first he does not see the older woman and is muttering to himself. Unable to avoid listening to him the older woman addresses him after hearing him say something about rocks, the trinitite.  She pulls, from her vast bag, her own rock, a geode.

We are then transported to the past when the older woman, whose name we learn is Tessa, was also a teenager. It is during WWII and prisoners of war (POWs) have been transferred to New Mexico.  Young Tessa meets Carlo, an Italian POW, and over time they develop a friendship, as he introduces her to opera and his love of music. Together, they discover music’s power to provide solace when hope appears gone. Returning to the present, the older woman has now passed this important message on to Atom.

Opening the concert will be performances from local musicians: a young piano student, James Si, and three vocalists, William Barefield, Val Thomas, and Valerie Gibbs. Barefield and Thomas were finalists in the recent Socorro Sings competition and have shared the stage in musical productions by Socorro Community Theater. Gibbs is a New Mexico Tech student studying voice with NMT’s music director, Gaby Vocello Benalil. They will sing selections from popular musicals, followed by “Trinity” by the Santa Fe Opera Apprentices.

“We are fortunate to have the Santa Fe Opera Apprentices bring to Socorro the caliber of talent one would only expect to find in large cities,” Kalish said. “And with no admission charge, this is a win-win opportunity for local families to enjoy a real night at the opera.”

–NMT–