Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990 TAG: 9003231725
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The following season's program will consist of "The Barber of Seville," a concert version of "Porgy and Bess" and "Gulliver," composed by the SVO's artistic director and conductor, Victoria Bond.
Johann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus" will be presented Sept. 27, 29 and Oct. 1 in Mill Mountain Theatre. Craig Fields of Virginia Tech will direct the production, which will be sung in English.
Bond will be conductor for that production and all others.
The all-Mozart concert is set for Feb. 4, 1991, and is intended as an observance of the 200th anniversary of the composer's death. It will take place in the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium and will feature singers from the Norfolk-based Virginia Opera.
The season's final production, Verdi's "Otello," is set for May 16, 18 and 20, 1991. Jere Hodgin will be guest director. He is executive and artistic director of Mill Mountain Theatre.
The production will be in Italian and will take place at Mill Mountain Theatre.
The following season will open with Bond's opera, which is based on the Jonathan Swift novel "Gulliver's Travels." Hodgin is writing the libretto and will be guest director. Lynne Taylor-Corbett, a friend and occasional artistic collaborator of Bond's, will come from New York to be guest choreographer.
"Gulliver" will be the SVO entry in Blue Ridge Renaissance, the valleywide arts festival that will take place in October 1991. The opera will receive its world premiere at the festival, which will be emphasizing new works.
The 1991-92 season's winter concert will feature music from George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess." There are hopes for a local chorus of the kind that performed Quincy Jones' "Black Requiem" with Ray Charles in 1988, and for a number of high-caliber soloists, but plans are not yet final.
Rossini's "The Barber of Seville," which will conclude the 1991-92 season, will be directed by Craig Fields and probably will be sung in English. The dates and place are yet to be decided.
by CNB