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OPERA at USC's production of Dominick Argento's Postcard from Morocco delivers both music and theatre.
Having worked with Argento on the piece the first year she became interested in opera and on other productions since, director Ellen Schlaefer appreciates how visually oriented and character centered the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer's works are.
"If people like theater, they will like this piece. If people like music, they will like this piece, too, because the orchestra is as much a character as the cast members," said Schlaefer, who is directing the opera, written in 1971, for the first time in its South Carolina premiere. "It's a really good character study, and it's a great piece of lyric theater. It's a blending of music and theater--the very nature of opera."
Set in a train station in 1914, Postcard from Morocco explores the human mind through six travelers who are characterized by their possessions: a lady with a hand mirror, a lady with a hat box, a lady with a cake box, a man with old luggage, a man with a shoe sample kit, and a man with a cornet case. The only named character, Mr. Owen, carries a paint box. As the enigmatic travelers await the next train, some of the mysterious reasons for their journeys come to light.
"It's a cerebral piece in a lot of ways, and the audience is free to make surmises about these characters," Schlaefer said. "The musical language is modern, but it's very lyrical. The audience will have an opportunity to experience this 'new classic' as a piece of music theater that will challenge them to examine the traditional notions of opera."
The cast, made up of students and one alumnus, includes Lindsay Hilliard, a graduate student from Goose Creek, as the lady with the hand mirror; Ariana Pullano, a graduate student from Rockville, Md., as the lady with a hat box; Krista Wilhelmsen, a graduate student from Needham, Mass., as the lady with a cake box; Evan McCormack, a graduate student from Webster, N.Y., as the man with old luggage; Daniel Gainey, a senior from Hartsville, as the man with a paint box; Greg Jebaily, who graduated in December 2006 and is from Florence, as the man with a shoe sample kit; Andrew Pittman, a graduate student from Morehead City, N.C., as the man with a cornet case; and Evan Broadhead, a junior from Knoxville, Tenn., and Claire Griffith, a junior from Sugar Hill, Ga., as entertainers, porters, and waiters.
Anita Tripathi Easterl,ing a theatre graduate, designed the set. Another recent graduate, Ursula M. Finley, who has been accepted into the lighting design program at UCLA, designed the lights. John Whitehead, executive director of the Columbia Music Festival Association, designed the costumes.
Neil Casey will conduct. Casey is assistant conductor and concert master of the Augusta Symphony and assistant conductor of USC Symphony. He has previously conducted The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Consul, La Boheme, and The Rape of Lucretia for OPERA at USC. He is a DMA candidate in the School of Music.
"I am excited for the singers, the orchestra, and audiences because this piece offers wit, passion, pathos, just as you have in La Boheme, but expressed in a new, for most audiences, yet accessible musical language," Schlaefer said.
Opera at USC's Postcard from Morocco is presented as part of the Columbia Festival of the Arts.
For more information about OPERA at USC and Argento and his works, go to www.music.sc.edu/ea/Opera/index.html.
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Cast of OPERA at USC's Postcard from Morocco
