It was a wedding
unlike any other at the University of Maine, melding the inspiration
of a class book with the institution's operatic roots. The School of
Performing Arts production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro,
sung in English, mobilized upward of 100 students in theater, music and
dance in the six-month run-up to the two weekends of performances this
past February. And as a "class opera," it served as a springboard for
cross-discipline academic dialogue campuswide about history, culture,
philosophy and the French language.
The last major
operatic production at UMaine was Die Fledermaus, staged in 1996
for the opening of the Class of '44 Hall, home of the School of
Performing Arts. Since then, UMaine theater professor Tom Mikotowicz
says he has been waiting for the right time to produce another opera.
An annual, full-scale
operatic production was once a mainstay of UMaine's academic performing
arts season. Longtime theater professor Al Cyrus and music professor Lud
Hallman directed many of them. Among their last collaborations in the
late 1980s was The Merry Widow.
The Marriage of
Figaro was the first UMaine opera Hallman coproduced in the early
'70s, shortly after the baritone joined the UMaine community to teach
voice and be a choral director.
In February, Hallman
conducted a 35-piece orchestra and Mikotowicz directed a cast of 28.
Some roles were double and split cast to allow as many students as
possible to perform. Student crews and four theater classes were
involved in the many behind-the-scenes activities, such as costuming,
stage set craft and lighting.
Professional scene and
lighting guest artists led the design team, including New York-based
lighting designer Burke Brown and scenic designer Laura McPherson from
Providence, R.I.
Early on, it was a
challenge to sell an opera to students, who perceive the genre as staid
and static, admits Mikotowicz. But by opening night, music students were
asking "why we don't do opera more often," he says. Theater students
said they never thought they'd have so much fun in an operatic
production.
What they discovered,
Mikotowicz says, was 18th-century musical comedy.
by
Margaret Nagle
