UNC Brings Opera to Festival Park [Concert Preview]
The 2012 concert season at Roanoke Island Festival Park continues this weekend with the music of Jacques Offenbach presented by UNC Chapel Hill this Saturday, March 17th. Read on for the official press release.
Opera comes to Festival Park March 17th
ROANOKE ISLAND- UNC Chapel Hill will present two performances of operatic music by the prolific 19th Century French composer Jacques Offenbach at Roanoke Island Festival Park on March 17. The performances will be in the Indoor Theatre at 2 and 7 pm. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students, free for ages 5 and under. They may be purchased in advance in the Visitor’s Center at RIFP or the day of the event.
The production will open with the opera “Lantern Marriage,” followed by scenes from the well-loved “Tales of Hoffman”. The UNC Opera Director is Terry Ellen Rhodes, pianists Grace Lloyd and Emily Russ.
Jacques Offenbach (1819 –1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850’s–1870’s and his uncompleted opera “The Tales of Hoffmann”. He was a powerful influence on later composers of
the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr. and Arthur Sullivan.
His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st, as “The Tales of Hoffman” remains part of the standard opera repertory today.
