TICKETS HERE
OTO’s reprise of our popular 2019 show (and our last in-person event) presenting this unique dramatic song experience this Fall at Polaris Hall!
Thursday, December 9, 2021 7:30 pm
POLARIS HALL
TICKETS HERE
ABOUT THE “SONG-OPERA”
Opera Theater Oregon presents a unique “Song-Opera” experience that commemorates the centennial of World War 1 through the music and poetry of the Great War 1914-1918, an era which in many ways parallels our own, marking a time of social upheaval, global pandemics and massive societal changes.
George Butterworth is one of the most famous soldier-composers of World War 1. Fighting for the British, he was killed by a sniper at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Butterworth’s six songs from A Shropshire Lad (A. E. Housman’s 1896 collection of poems) inspired our program: the story of a young man who falls in love and goes off to war.
Filling in the story are songs by German composer Rudi Stephan, who like Butterworth was killed by a sniper, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who volunteered to drive ambulance wagons at the age of 42, Charles Ives’ 3 War Songs, and Kurt Weill’s settings of Walt Whitman. Other composers include Claude Debussy, Francis Poulenc, and Ivor Gurney as well as popular songs of the time like, “Over There!” and, “It’s A Long Way To Tipperary.”
PERFORMERS
Hannah Penn, mezzo-soprano
Katherine Goforth, tenor
Nicholas Meyer, baritone
Sequoia, piano
Lisa Lipton, clarinet
Amelia Lukas, flute/piccolo
DURATION
90 mins.
PRODUCTION SPONSORS
POLARIS HALL