Take a musical tour through Europe at CSUS

Cantare! Chanter! Singen! Sing! The California State University, Sacramento Opera Theatre presents scenes in Italian, French, German and English from La Boheme, Carmen, Cavalleria Rusticana, Dido and Aeneas, Don Giovanni, Falstaff, Sir John in Love and Die Zauberflote. Performances are at 8 p.m., Nov. 29 - 30 and Dec. 1 in the University Theatre.

Each opera will be performed in the original language in which it was composed. CSUS music professor Lynn Stradley, who has been teaching the CSUS opera theatre class for the past 25 years, directs the performance.

"The opera theatre class is a performance class," says Stradley. "There are 16 students enrolled this semester and they are all involved in the production, either performing or directing."

Every fall semester Stradley directs an opera based on a compilation of favorite scenes from world famous operas and just one of the challenges he faces is timing.

"For years, in the fall semester, we have chosen to do scenes instead of staging a full opera based on time constraints," says Stradley. "And we always have new students in the fall, so we have to make sure they can read the music as well as speak the languages in which the operas are written."

Stradley says that producing a piece that includes various scenes provides a multilingual, melodic training ground for students to pursue professional opera careers.

"Whenever you are part of a opera crew, you have to be able to sing in the language in which the operas are written, so by choosing different scenes, in different languages, it gives the students a chance to see what a professional opera careers is like, and to prepare for it," says Stradley.

Many of his students have gone on to professional opera careers including two recent graduate students that secured contracts at the San Jose Opera. And the Sacramento Opera recently hired one of his costume coordinators, Mary Herbrba, based on her work with Stradley.

Tickets for the opera are $8 general and $5 for students and seniors and are available at the CSUS Ticket Office at (916) 278-4323. For more information call (916) 278-7980.

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For further information send E-Mail to infodesk@csus.edu or contact
Public Affairs (916) 278-6156.

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