Article: Summer Season"Busy Summer Ahead for NJOT"Asbury Park Press (Carlton Wilkinson) In the absence of a full season from Asbury Park's own Metro Lyric Opera, locals will have to look elsewhere for a hot dose of musical passion this summer. Luckily, we don't have to go too far to find it. At McCarter Theatre in Princeton, the New Jersey Opera Theater is staging four complete operas on three separate programs plus two concert programs featuring selections from other great operas. This week, New Jersey Opera Theater offers free summer season previews with concerts of arias and ensembles from upcoming productions. The complete schedule so far includes a packed list of opera performances during most of July, including four romantic comedies: W. A. Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, conducted by Steven Mosteller; Gaetano Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, led by Brent McMunn; and Giacomo Puccini's Gianni Schicchi on a double bill with Buoso's Ghost, the 1996 sequel to Gianni Schicchi by Michael Ching, artistic director of Opera Memphis. The double bill will be conducted by James Caraher and directed by a rising star of the opera world, Michael Scarola. Scarola has been a hit with New Jersey Opera Theater audiences in past productions, including Falstaff, and has appeared on stages all over the world. He previously directed this Puccini/Ching double bill with the Indianapolis Opera. This week's events offer previews of those productions. The first is a master class with Ching on Tuesday at the Woolworth Building on Princeton University's campus. Ching's Buoso's Ghost is a clever development of the plot of Puccini's classic one-act. Designed to be paired with Gianni Schicchi on programs, the work has become an instant success, enjoying performances all over the United States. In addition to presenting beautiful music, master classes allow audiences the opportunity to see the inside mechanics of a successful musical interpretation. In this case, the composer himself will coach singers in various aspects of their performances in Buoso's Ghost, a rare privilege in the opera world, where the most frequently performed composers are ghosts themselves. A second master class, with Metropolitan Opera soprano Sharon Sweet, will be held at 7 p.m. June 25, also in the Woolworth Building. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Princeton Public Library will host NJOT performers in an evening of excerpts from the Mozart, Puccini/Ching and Donizetti programs as part of the library's "Unquiet Wednesday" series. A similar concert event will be held 7 p.m. Saturday at Nassau Park Pavilion, behind Panera in the Nassau Park Shopping Center near Quakerbridge Road and Route 1. Featured will be the same professional soloists who will star in the summer's full productions. The list includes Steven Condy, a hit with audiences at the New Jersey Opera Theater's February staging of Falstaff, singing the title role of Gianni Schicchi, and Princeton native Matthew Curran as Don Alfonso and Jason Kaminski as the Guiglelmo in Cosi fan tutte. Both Curran and Kaminski were featured in last year's NJOT productions. Along with them will be a slew of talented singers fresh from stages and conservatories all over the world. For those uncertain about opera or unfamiliar with these classics, this week's free events make a sensible and important introduction to the season. The New Jersey Opera Theater also is sponsoring a day camp for children with an interest in music, opera and musical theater. The three-day camp takes kids behind the scenes for the production of the Donizetti opera, introducing them to the various aspects of the history, the music and the stagecraft and includes backstage tours and theatrical exercises. The camp runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 5 to 7 and costs $150 per child. On June 30 and July 1, New Jersey Opera Theater mounts two more free performances, this time featuring excerpts from classic and contemporary Broadway musicals. Labeled Music Theater Under the Stars, the programs will be held in the Pettoranello Gardens, Community Park North, Route 206 and Mountain Avenue, Princeton. The full opera productions and the regular summer season's concert performances are held at the 300-seat-plus Berlind Theater, an intimate auditorium with stadium seating below the main McCarter Theatre space, 91 University Place, Princeton. |
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