VCU Opera to take stage this weekend

Nick Bonadies
Spectrum Editor

VCU Opera and the VCU Symphony Orchestra are set to take the stage again this Saturday April 30 and Sunday May 1 at the Singleton Center for Performing Arts, with 2011’s production of German composer Englebert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel.”

The opera, based on the Grimm brothers fairy tale of the same name, will be performed by a full cast of student singers under the direction of Melanie Kohn Day, who has acted as director of VCU Music’s opera program since 1983.

Daniel Myssyk, the department’s director of orchestral studies, will lead the VCU Symphony as conductor. The symphony collaborates with VCU Opera every spring for a full-scale production, which in past years have included Richard Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus,” Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” and Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.”

“Hansel and Gretel,” whose early productions in 1893 and 1894 were conducted by the likes of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, follows the familiar story of two children who are caught nibbling at the gingerbread house of a cannibalistic witch and must then circumvent her unscrupulous punitive measures.

Day said that herself and Kenneth Wood, VCU Opera’s stage director, chose “Hansel and Gretel” during last year’s production of “Die Fledermaus.”

“(We) realized that we had the perfect makings for a ‘Hansel and Gretel’ cast … even for double-casting a number of the principal roles,” she said.

While VCU Opera productions occasionally utilize voice faculty or outside professional singers in more mature roles – thus affording students an up-close learning experience – “Hansel and Gretel” is cast entirely by undergraduate students, according to Day.

In conjunction with Myssyk – who Day said “has developed our orchestra magnificently” – “We felt (the students) were ready for this challenge,” she said, adding that the singers and instrumentalists “would grow tremendously from learning this rich, colorful and enormously popular score.”

In many cases, Day said, singers in VCU Opera graduate having sung as many as four major roles and many smaller productions, which results in “a very polished ‘package'” upon auditioning for graduate schools or competitions. Many alumni –including Matthew Burns of the New York City Opera and Pamela Armstrong of the Metropolitan Opera – have gone on to develop high-profile solo careers, while members of the cast of “Hansel and Gretel” have applied to and auditioned for a number of prestigious graduate programs in the fall, including New England Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music.

VCU Opera and VCU Symphony Orchestra present Englebert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” this Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1 in Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall at the Singleton Center for Performing Arts. Tickets are $8 for students with an I.D., $15 general admission and $10 for seniors and VCU employees.