MUSC 212.002: Opera Workshop
UNC Opera performs operas, operettas, and scene programs from a wide range of time periods and styles, including both standard and new works. UNC Opera generally presents one mainstage production per semester, often double-cast with orchestra, in Hill Hall Auditorium, Memorial Hall, and Historic Playmakers Theater on the UNC campus. The company not only serves the educational and artistic needs of the University but also provides affordable and accessible performances for the community. In recent years UNC Opera has presented productions such as Massenet’s Cendrillon (which UNC Opera director Marc Callahan was named a national semi-finalist for The American Prize in Directing-The Charles Nelson Reilly Prize, 2018-19), Couples Therapy (a program of duets from various stages of relationships), and a twin bill of Menotti’s The Telephone of Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon (Cinderella), including students from local schools.
This year UNC Opera presented Handel’s Alcina with baroque orchestra conducted by Prof. Brent Wissick in November 2018 and will present Kurt Weill’s One Who Says Yes on March 30 & 31 alongside guest buyoka Umekawa Ichinosuke. To find out more about how Director Marc Callahan came up with the idea for this collaborative production, click here.
But more than just performing, in the spring semester UNC Opera students work on a smaller production and have time to focus on the techniques of performing and the history of the art form. This semester they’ve learned about performing the foundations of Noh and have also extensively researched the history and intricacies of this exciting art form. This coming weekend, arrive early for the production and take a tour through “Noh World” the multimedia exhibit (in the rotunda of Hill Hall) that Callahan and the students have put together to give audience members an overview of all they’ve learned this semester as well as an insight into the production they’re about to see. And join Professor Tim Carter in Hill Hall 103 (just off the rotunda) for a pre-show lecture, “Berlin Meets Japan: Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill, 1930.”
UNC Opera provides students with insight into the immense art form that is opera, expands their world views of what opera can be, and provides them with the technical skills needed to make a career in the field.
This course meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-5: 30 pm and counts as 1 credit hour toward graduation.