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By Marci Janas '91
Singers from
the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College will join The
Cleveland Orchestra, under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst, and an
international cast of singers in concert performances of Richard Strauss's
Elektra at Severance Hall Thursday, May 20, at 8 p.m. and Sunday,
May 23, at 7 p.m. Elektra will be
sung in German with projected English subtitles. The one-act opera,
which lasts approximately an hour and 40 minutes, will be performed without
intermission.
The Oberlin cast members are soprano
Jean Lowe as Klytemnestra's Confidante; soprano Marie Masters as Klytemnestra's
Trainbearer; baritone Todd Boyce as Orest's Tutor; mezzo-soprano Karen
Jesse as First Maid; mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle, as Second Maid; and
mezzo-soprano Kathryn Leemhuis as Third Maid.
Principal
roles will be sung by soprano Lisa Gasteen as Elektra, Agamemnon's daughter;
soprano Christine Brewer as Chrysothemis, Elektra's sister; mezzo-soprano
Felicity Palmer as Klytemnestra, their mother and Agamemnon's widow; and
baritone Alan Held as Orest, Agamemnon's son.
For
information about ticket prices and parking at Severance Hall, please
call The Severance Hall box office: (216) 231-1111 or 1-800-686-1141.
Members of the media requiring additional information about Elektra
or The Cleveland Orchestra should contact Timothy Parkinson at (216)
231-7473 or tparkinson@clevelandorchestra.com.
Todd Boyce of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin,
Kathryn Leemhuis of Columbus, Ohio, and Marie Masters of Fairlawn, Ohio,
vocal performance majors in their junior year at Oberlin, are making their
Cleveland Orchestra debuts. Rebecca Ringle of Santa Fe, New Mexico, who
graduated in 2003 with a degree in vocal performance, sang the role of
Thibault last June in The Cleveland Orchestra's concert production of
Verdi's Don Carlo with Franz Welser-Möst conducting. Karen Jesse
of Prairie View, Illinois, and Jean Lowe of Eugene, Oregon, vocal performance
majors, were Flowermaidens in the Orchestra's Cleveland and Carnegie Hall
concert productions of Wagner's Parsifal, Act II, under the baton
of Pierre Boulez, in February. Jesse graduates from Oberlin in May; Jean
graduated in December 2003.
These
appearances by Oberlin Conservatory of Music students continue the enhanced
collaboration between the Orchestra and the Conservatory, established
at the start of Welser-Möst's tenure as music director. The maestro took
the Oberlin Orchestra through a rehearsal of Beethoven's Leonore Overture
last fall in Finney Chapel, and the Women of the Oberlin College
Choir were on stage when mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong '02 made her
Cleveland Orchestra debut in March, joining Dame Felicity Lott in Debussy's
La Damoiselle élue. Malia Bendi Merad '03 sang one of the soprano
roles in The Cleveland Orchestra's first performances of Handel's oratorio
Israel in Egypt last November.
The Conservatory and Cleveland Orchestra collaboration builds upon a core element of Oberlin's mission: professional training and contact with one of the world's great orchestras is seminal to a formal music education.
“This
is a marvelous opportunity for our students,” says Acting Dean of the
Conservatory David Stull. “We are very pleased with our evolving relationship
with The Cleveland Orchestra.”
Gary
Hanson, executive director of The Cleveland Orchestra, says: “The Cleveland
Orchestra has long enjoyed an association with Oberlin College, and because
of Franz Welser-Möst's commitment to education, our relationship with
this fine conservatory has been invigorated.”
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