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A famous Swiss production in the 1970s of L'Italiana in Algeri set the opera on the wing of a 747.
Director Ellen Schlaefer doesn’t have a plane for Opera at USC’s production Nov. 11 and 13—“That requires a lot more room than we have in the Keenan High School Auditorium,” she said—but she has lifted Rossini’s comic masterpiece, which premiered in 1813, from the early 19th and landed it in the early 20th century.
“I’ve updated it a little bit, setting it just post World War I,” Schlaefer said.
L'Italiana in Algeri is a bel canto opera, which means “beautiful singing,” but it helps to know the storyline, Schlaefer said.
After the war, the heroine, Isabella, a rich Italian yachtswoman, sets out to find her long-lost love Lindoro, a journalist who was captured by the Ottomans while covering the war and is being held in the palace of Mustafa, the Bey of Algiers.
Isabella’s boat shipwrecks near the Bey’s palace at the same time that Mustafa has tired of his wife, Elvira, and his harem and has decided he wants an Italian wife.
“It’s a lot of fun, and in a lot of ways, it’s a women’s lib opera,” Schlaefer said. “Isabella stands up to the Bey of Algiers. She’s pretty out there in terms of being manipulating and outspoken and crafty, especially when you think that the opera is almost 200 years old.”
USC students Brittnee Siemon and Cindy Hanna will share the role of Isabella.
Jacob Will, a bass-baritone and an assistant professor on the voice faculty in the School of Music, will sing the role of Mustafa. Will, a USC alumnus, performed the role when he was with the Zurich Opera.
“We’re really very fortunate to have Jacob Will, who is graciously giving his time and talent, and all the voice faculty in the School of Music,” Schlaefer said. “It’s great for the students to bring in a professional who is already here.”
Khary Wilson will portray Lindoro, and Sylvia Aponte and Elizabeth Hill will perform the role of Elvira. Ariana Pullano will portray Zulma.
Joseph Timms and Jonathan Mears will perform the role of Ali, the Bey’s henchman who finds Isabella on the beach. Nick Pop is Taddeo, Isabella’s tutor who is secretly in love with her “because it’s opera and it’s complicated,” Schlaefer said.
Doctoral student Tara Villa will conduct the USC Opera Orchestra under the direction of Donald Portnoy. Andy Mills, theatre and dance, designed the set.
The cast will perform the opera in Italian with super-title translations. “We’re trying something that Opera at USC hasn’t done in a few years,” Schlaefer said.
For more information, call 7-5369, or go to www.music.sc.edu/ea/Opera/index.html.
10/05
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Above, from left, Elizabeth Hill is Elvira, Jacob Will is Mustafa, and Britnee Siemon is Isabella in Opera at USC's production of L'Italiana in Algeri. Below, from left, Jacob Will is Mustafa, Cindy Hanna is Isabella, and Khary Wilson is Lindoro.
