Jonathon Field to Direct Artist Diploma Students in Richard Wargo's Comic One-Act Opera The Music Shop on Monday, December 13, 4:30 P.M., in Central 21 Story by Rhiannon Giddens
	The Music Shop An Operatic Farce in One Act Cast (In Order of Vocal Appearance) Masha - Zara Barrett Dimitri - Michael Chipman Ivan - Leif Aruhn-Solen Ivan's Wife - Susan Black Setting: A Small Music Shop in Moscow, 1896		Mezzo-soprano Susan Black and baritone Michael Chipman in rehearsal for The Music Shop. Opera lovers in Oberlin have only one complaint: there just aren't enough performances! Area opera buffs are forced to survive each semester on one large production in Hall Auditorium and two sets of opera scenes in Kulas Recital Hall or Finney Chapel. Fans will have another opportunity to view that grandest of art forms on Monday, December 13, 4:30 p.m., in the Conservatory's Central 21, when four Artist Diploma students perform the one-act farce The Music Shop, with music and libretto by American composer Richard Wargo. Please note: due to the staging difficulties in Central 21, latecomers will not be seated. The Music Shop is a hilarious portrait of a bumbling husband's attempt to remember the name of a song his domineering wife ordered him to purchase. The shop owner, Dimitri (baritone Michael Chipman AD '00) and his assistant Masha (soprano Zara Barrett AD '01) try to help the hen-pecked husband Ivan (tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén AD '01), but he knows nothing about music. While they sing bits of well-known tunes to jog his memory, he is plagued by visions of his opera-singer wife (mezzo-soprano Susan Black AD '01) that only he can see. There is a happy ending, and, as music director Michalak says, "It's genuinely funny and nobody dies!" This intimate chamber opera is directed by Jonathon Field, assistant professor of music and director of the Oberlin Opera Theater program. Field first directed The Music Shop at Lake George Opera some years ago and realized he had a comic masterpiece on his hands. He says, "I had been looking for a piece that was ideal for the Artist Diploma students. The Artist Diploma is a two-year performance program that draws singers from all over the world. When I directed this piece at the Lake George Opera, I had never before heard on opera audience laugh that much. This is a good exercise for singers in a style they don't often get to perform: farce," The music director is new coach/accompanist Daniel Michalak, who describes the piece this way: "The composition of The Music Shop is clever, accessible and beautiful. It is poised halfway between musical theater and opera. This is a very fast-moving show, very densely packed and carefully timed, with lots of tempo and meter changes. Add in enough props and staging for a comic opera, and you have a challenge the Artist Diploma students are well prepared to execute beautifully and humorously." The Music Shop is the third part of a trilogy of operas by Richard Wargo, based on short stories by Russian writer and playwright Anton Chekhov. The Music Shop was based on the short story Forgot, the other parts of the trilogy are The Seduction of a Lady and A Visit to the Country. About the Director Jonathon Field has directed more than 50 productions throughout the United States. He directed touring productions for the Lyric Opera of Chicago of Trouble in Tahiti, Gianni Schicchi, The Old Maid and the Thief, and The Spanish Hour. For San Francisco Opera's Western Opera Theatre, he directed La Cenerentola and Die Fledermaus and for Seattle Opera, an updated version of La Boheme. In San Francisco, he directed Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in the original Russian. Over the past 10 years, he directed 10 productions for the Arizona Opera, and was deemed by the press "their most perceptive stage-director." Field's range extends from the avante-garde to musical comedy. He has successfully introduced computer-generated scenery to opera production in Candide, and he has pioneered the use of video-projected scenery in productions of Tales of Hoffmann and Der Freischutz. In the realm of operetta and musicals, he has staged H.M.S. Pinafore for Opera Omaha, Trial by Jury for Lake George Opera, Bernstein's Wonderful Town in Chicago, and Merry Widow and Countess Maritza in San Francisco.
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