April 5, 2003
Contact: Jo Ann Lloyd
(805) 756-1511
Cal Poly Music Students To Perform Haydn Opera April 22-23
SAN LUIS OBISPO – Cal Poly music students will give four performances of Franz Joseph Haydn's one-act comic opera, “The Apothecary,” at 7:30 and 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday, April 22-23, in the Cal Poly Theatre.
The opera has double casts and understudies “to allow more students to participate,” said Jacalyn Kreitzer, the opera’s producer and a Cal Poly voice, performance and diction teacher.
The casts include sopranos Lauren Groff, Jessica Reed and Rachael Beckner singing the role of the wealthy beauty Grilletta, and mezzo-sopranos Kimberly Nicola and Carolyn Jorstad in the “pants” role of Volpino.
Students Edmonds Chandler, Ryan Ernst and Ryan Mosse will be playing the part of Mengone. Both Volpino and Mengone are in love with Grilletta and want to marry her to secure her fortune.
In addition, Dallas Carter, Paul Fishman and Carson Britz will appear as Sempronio, the apothecary and guardian to his beautiful, rich ward, Grilletta.
Michael Ingham, longtime voice, diction and opera teacher at UC Santa Barbara, will serve as director. Pianist Rudolf Budginas will be the accompanist and conductor. Budginas is a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California and a staff accompanist at Cal Poly.
Kreitzer and Katherine Arthur, co-music director and Cal Poly voice teacher, thought it was time to have an opera workshop in place for the students.
“The students have been extremely enthusiastic about this project and the very models of professionalism,” Kreitzer said. “For many of them, this is the first time undertaking such a production and performing Haydn. They have been working often with the Music Department’s accompanists Budginas and Patrick Christians, and their attitude has been exemplary.”
Sets will be provided by Howard Gee of the Cal Poly Theatre and Dance Department. Cynthia Vest, a longtime choral participant and costume assistant with the Pacific Repertory Opera, will coordinate the costumes provided by UCSB.
Laura Pryzgoda, a Music Department alumna who now works as a theater performer, will provide the makeup.
Tickets are $6 for students and senior citizens and $10 for the public.
They are on sale at the Performing Arts Ticket Office 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekends.
To order by phone, call SLO-ARTS (756-2787); to order by fax, dial 756-6088.
The performances are sponsored by the Cal Poly Music Department and College
of Liberal Arts and supported in part by local donors. Please call the
Music Department at 756-2406 for more information.
- # # # -