(From left) Adam Vannest, Nick Stoener, Katie Farrell, Brad Gilmore, Selina Madison, Scott Walters and Ashley Williams
	(From left) Jarrod Ingram and Tash Posey
	(From left) Kharis Belgrave, Clay Mooney and Erreka Reed
	(From left) Kharis Belgrave and Erreka Reed

On Campus Opera
By Mackenzie McNay

This spring, the College of the Arts embarked upon a new challenge. The Departments of Music and of Theatre & Performance Studies combined students and talents to put on two one-act operas, Gianni Schicchi and The Old Maid and the Thief, which were presented in April. Also combining forces on this project were faculty members from each department; Dean Adams, artistic director for the theatre department, and Michael Alexander, director of orchestras for the music department.

The production employed the traditional stylings of conventional opera, which Adams called "one of the purest forms of music," but was staged in an open, modern way that today's audiences understand. Students from both departments benefited from working on the co-production.

"For most of us, this was our first opera," said Anna Gay, a theatre performance major, "and I think that we all really wanted to be working on this production." Gay also mentioned that the combination of the directors was what really united the departments, and in turn, made for a fantastic production. "Prof. Adams and Dr. Alexander were both very supportive and fun to work with."

Scott Walters, a music major with a focus in vocal performance, agreed. "The directors were the backbone of the operas."

Adams, however, credited the diverse talents of the cast, emphasizing that each member brought something unique to the stage. In combining students with a variety talents and training, Adams said, "everyone respected everyone else's strengths and the students really enhanced each other by doing so."

Both of the one-act operas offered the students many challenges because of their complex plots. Loosely based on Dante's Divine Comedy , Gianni Schicchi was written by Giacomo Puccini. In the opera, relatives of a wealthy man are angry because the recently deceased man has left everything to a monastery. They hire a swindler named Gianni Schicchi to pose as the dead man. Schicchi, performed by music major Jarrod Ingram, is supposed to rewrite the will, leaving precious possessions to the greedy relatives. Instead, he leaves everything to himself, then fakes a second death for the wealthy man's death to ensure that the will be final.

Greed and deception also run rampant in Gian-Carlo Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief . An older woman, played by music alumna Kharis Belgrave (2004), takes in a lost soul, played by music major Clay Mooney. When the woman learns there is a mysterious criminal on the loose, she and her maid decide he is the man that is staying with them. Instead of asking if the rumors are true, or demanding that he leave, they appease the "thief" by leaving money and riches at his feet. The woman then accuses the man of being the wanted criminal and blackmails him to be her lover. The maid, having taken her own interest in the visitor, sweet talks the man into stealing everything from her mistress, including her car so the two of them can live happily ever after together.

Some students in the cast had never taken an acting class before, whereas others had been acting all their lives. Similarly, some performers had never sung before, while others have been featured in the Atlanta Opera and have been performing this genre for years. The opera, therefore, was intended to expose and stretch the student's knowledge of genres.

"I really learned a lot and became a more well-rounded performer," Gay said

Taking on a project like this can be extremely overwhelming, especially in sharing the director's role. However, Adams felt that, "The wonderful thing about collaborating on this project was that, with so many different people, there were a variety of ways to solve problems. There were infinite possibilities."

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