Midtown Opera Festival presented at Playhouse on the Square

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The Rape of Lucretia- April 4 & 6, 2013 @ 7:30 PM

Bon Appetit! and This is the Rill Speaking- April 5, 2013 @ 7:30 PM & April 7, 2013 @ 2:00 PM

The Rape of Lucretia

In celebration of the centennial of Benjamin Britten, we present his searing and majestic take on the tragic story of the crime that sparked the birth of Rome.  Featuring the returns of Matthew Worth (Don Pasquale) and Matthew Curran (La Boheme) as well as the mainstage debut of Memphis native Allison Sanders and the Memphis debuts of Will Ferguson, Suzanne Hendrix (George London Award Winner) and Abigail Fischer as Lucretia, it will be an evening not to be missed by any fan of virtuosic singing and dramatic intensity.  Steven Osgood (Die Fledermaus) conducts.

Bon Appetit! & This is the Rill Speaking
American composer Lee Hoiby is widely regarded as one of the great masters of writing music to showcase the beauty of the human voice.  These two one-act operas exemplify what makes his music so splendid.

Hoiby’s one act opera, Bon Appetit! is a clever and musically rich setting of a Julia Child cooking episode.  Originally written for Jean Stapleton, it applies all of the musical styles of grand opera to the act of creating a chocolate cake, with delightful results.  Jamie Barton, Metropolitan Opera singer and star of the documentary "The Audition", stars as Julia Child.

This is the Rill Speaking is an elegiac and bewitching reflection on growing up in a small Southern town in the 1950's.  Opera News called the premiere of this show "one of the highlights of the New York opera season."   In this opera we are proud to present rising star Jamie-Rose Guarrine and former Opera Memphis Artist in Residence Kristin Vienneau (Die Fledermaus).  Steven Osgood (Die Fledermaus) conducts.