Opera Double Bill Features ‘Telephone,’ ‘Gallantry’
A double feature operatic performance opens the curtains on the Westmont music department’s spring concert season with productions of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Telephone” and Douglas Moore’s “Gallantry” Jan. 19 and 21 at 7 p.m. in Porter Theatre. Purchase tickets, which cost $20 general admission and $15 for students and seniors, online at westmont.edu/boxoffice.
“These musically challenging and more modern shows expose our students to a different type of singing, acting and stage movement,” says Christina Farris Jensen ’09, who is stage director of the production. “The Music Department strives to introduce students to a wide variety of musical styles and techniques by producing musical works from disparate eras.”
“The Telephone” tells the story of repeated interruptions to an attempted marriage proposal, and “Gallantry” parodies a television soap opera set in an operating room.
“The students have worked hard and are doing a wonderful job bringing out the comedy and the drama of these two operas in the modern context of our interactions with technology and how they may have quietly but indisputably taken over our lives,” says Ruth Lin, chair of the Westmont music department and music director of the operas.
Menotti, an Italian composer who created more than two dozen operas in his lifetime, premiered “The Telephone” in 1947 in New York City. Moore, an American composer best known for his folk opera “The Ballad of Baby Doe,” premiered “Gallantry” in 1958 in Colorado.
“These wonderful works aren’t as widely known or performed, but should be because they’re musically well written for both vocalists and instrumentalists and full of dramatic possibilities,” Lin says. “They’re both comedies with a heart that speak to the human experience and human drama.”
Student performers returned early from winter vacation for a New Year’s Day bootcamp, rehearsing with Lin and Jensen. “Those early rehearsals were intense and fun,” Lin says. “We have some terrific students performing in these operas and instrumentalists beautifully playing solos in the orchestral parts,” Lin says.