Opera's greatest hits

The voice students of Dalhousie’s Department of Music are taking to the stage again, this time offering an evening of opera excerpts. “For the Love of Opera – Take ll” will be held at St. Andrew’s United Church this Saturday, March 24 at 7:30 p.m.

The event is a true showcase for the voice program, featuring students from all years, performances by the voice faculty, and accompaniment provided by the collaborative pianists from each voice studio. The event is also a key fundraiser for the music department’s annual opera workshop.

Jonathan Macarthur, who graduates this spring with a BMus in Voice Performance, will not only be one of the night’s many performers, but also co-produced and directed the show with fellow voice student Matthew Béasant. This is the first time that students have taken on this sort of leadership role for the event.

The show will open and close with rousing ensemble numbers, but in between there will be a vast array of arias, duets, trios, and even a sextet from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.

The art of performance

The numbers have all been semi-staged by student directors. Mr. Macarthur feels this element helps the audience understand the story and challenges the singers to really embody their character. “It’s one thing to get up and sing an aria in recital form, but quite another to get up and sing it with the character you’re singing to on stage with you!” he explains.

This means, in Mr. Macarthur’s case, that he’ll have the full French regiment on stage
with him. (Well, some semblance of them anyway.) His aria, “Ah Mes Amis!”, comes
from the opera La Fille du Régiment by Donizetti.

In it, his character Tonio is overcome by excitement at being in love, and sings enthusiastically to his comrades so that they might revel with him. He is so overcome, in fact, that he spouts out nine high Cs – a huge feat for any young tenor, and one
which Mr. Macarthur doesn’t take lightly. He describes the high note as “the pinnacle
of a tenor’s range,” and admits that singing it nine times in one piece “always feels
like a gamble.”

In a music world inundated by auto-tune, we can still count on opera to keep the excitement in live singing.

The extremes of emotion

Soprano Lauren Estey, a fourth-year vocal student, has fun working on her aria “Adieu notre petite table” with Mr. Macarthur as her director. “He is so creative,” she says, “but I like that he kept the interpretation simple, and true to the music.”

The aria is sung by the title character in Massenet’s opera Manon. “I love Manon as a
character because you get to watch her develop from girl to womanhood,” explains Ms. Estey, “and the aria I’m singing is sort of the transitional moment.”

So what can the audience expect on the big night? “They can expect what you always expect with opera, which is to laugh and cry - both extremes,” promises Ms. Estey. “If you’ve never been to an opera, this is a great place to start,” adds Mr. Macarthur. “It’s all the exciting bits of different operas thrown into one night!”

For the Love of the Opera - Take II
Saturday March 24, 7:30 p.m.
Saint Andrew's United Church, Halifax (corner of Coburg and Robie)
Tickets $15 / $10, available from the Department of Music office and at the door