{"id":30484,"date":"2018-10-12T03:46:57","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T10:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=30484"},"modified":"2018-10-09T14:43:46","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T21:43:46","slug":"a-new-season-of-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/10\/12\/a-new-season-of-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"A new season of opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vancouver Opera\u2019s production of The Merry Widow<\/em> opens Oct. 20. (photo by John Grigaitis)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am thrilled that The Merry Widow<\/em> will open our 58th season,\u201d Kim Gaynor told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cThe Merry Widow<\/em> has only been produced twice before in the history of Vancouver Opera. We have a terrific cast, and director Kelly Robinson also directed our smash-hit Evita<\/em> in 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaynor, a member of the Jewish community, is general director of Vancouver Opera.<\/p>\n

\u201cFranz Leh\u00e1r, the composer of The Merry Widow<\/em>, always used Jewish librettists for his operas \u2013 in this case, Viktor L\u00e9on and Leo Stein \u2013 although he was Roman Catholic,\u201d she noted. \u201cThe cultural milieu in early 20th-century Vienna was made up of a significant Jewish contingent. And Leh\u00e1r\u2019s wife, Sophie (n\u00e9e Paschkis), was Jewish before her conversion to Catholicism upon marriage, which was a common practice at the time in the case of a \u2018mixed\u2019 marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leh\u00e1r\u2019s The Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe),<\/em> a comedic operetta, is set in Paris at the turn of the last century. In the Vancouver Opera production, soprano Lucia Cesaroni will be making her role debut with the VO as the wealthy widow, Hanna Glawari, who tries to win the heart of Count Danilo, played by tenor John Cudia.<\/p>\n

In the past year, notes the show\u2019s promotional material, Cesaroni \u201calso debuted with acclaim in both soprano roles of La Boh\u00e8me<\/em>, as Mimi with Pacific Opera Victoria and Musetta with l\u2019Op\u00e9ra de Montreal.\u201d She last performed with the VO in West Side Story<\/em> in 2011.<\/p>\n

Cudia has performed in two recent VO productions: as Cassio in Verdi\u2019s Otello<\/em> (2017) and Juan Peron in Evita<\/em> (2016). Among his credits, he is the first and only actor to have performed both as the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera and Jean Valjean in Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/em> on Broadway.<\/p>\n

The VO production of The Merry Widow<\/em> plays Oct. 20, 25 and 27, 7:30 p.m., and Oct. 28, 2 p.m., at Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets range in price from $50 to $175 and are available from the VO at 604-683-0222 or vancouveropera.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vancouver Opera\u2019s production of The Merry Widow opens Oct. 20. (photo by John Grigaitis) \u201cI am thrilled that The Merry Widow will open our 58th season,\u201d Kim Gaynor told the Independent. \u201cThe Merry Widow has only been produced twice before in the history of Vancouver Opera. We have a terrific cast, and director Kelly Robinson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[6970,8419,8420],"class_list":["post-30484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-kim-gaynor","tag-merry-widow","tag-vancouver-opera"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}