March 19, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:
Lara Hoyt, Coordinator for Public Relations and Alumni Affairs
Opera at Rutgers and Musica Raritana present Handel's "Athalia" New Brunswick, NJ – Opera at Rutgers and the period instrument orchestra Musica Raritana will collaborate in two performances of Handel’s “Athalia” at Schare Recital Hall on Saturday, Apr. 14 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Apr. 15 at 2 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.
“Our performances will offer a rare opportunity to see the work staged,” said Andrew Kirkman, who directs Musica Raritana. “Although acknowledged as Handel’s first mature oratorio, and a work of great power and beauty, ‘Athalia’ remains little performed.”
The story is a heady mix of vengeance and intrigue and features one of Handel’s great female characters. Athalia, the daughter of Jezebel, has usurped the throne of Judah by slaughtering all its rightful heirs with the exception of one: the child Joas, who grows up to defeat the evil queen and claim his rightful status as King of the Jews. With its rich orchestration and many choruses of varying complexity and grandeur, the music gives the oratorio an epic quality.
No tickets are required for these free performances. Doors open 30 minutes prior to each scheduled performance; admission will be granted on a first-come, first-serve basis. Schare Recital Hall is in the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center, 85 George Street (between Route 18 and Ryders Lane), on the Douglass campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick, New Jersey. This venue is not wheelchair accessible.
For more information on any Mason Gross event, visit www.masongross.rutgers.edu or call the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center ticket office at 732-932-7511.
About Opera at Rutgers and Pamela Gilmore
Opera at Rutgers, directed by Pamela Gilmore, strives to prepare voice majors for the competitive professional world by presenting a minimum of two fully staged scenes programs each year, in addition to a main stage production of standard operatic repertoire. This year’s production of “Athalia” is its second production in a new venture that aims each year to present a baroque/classical opera with period instruments and appropriate singing style. The first was of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” presented at Schare Recital Hall in November 2005.
Gilmore has taught on the faculties of the Israeli Vocal Arts Institute, Mannes College of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory, The Bel Canto Foundation of Northwestern University, and Intermezzo Festival. She has served as Director of Opera at Rutgers for six seasons, producing “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” “Die ZauberflÖte,” “Roméo et Juliette,” “La Traviata,” “Dido and Aeneas,” “Street Scene” and “Die Lustige Witwe.” Ms. Gilmore is head coach of the Spoleto Vocal Arts Symposium, and has been affiliated with the Metropolitan, Utah, Bronx, Portland and New Rochelle Opera Companies. She has collaborated with John Alexander, Martina Arroya, James de Blasis, Tito Capobianco, Nico Castel, Joan Dornemann, Enza Ferrara, Mignon Dunn, Hakan Hagegard, Benny Goodman, Sherril Milnes, Anna Moffo, Louis Quilico, Renata Scotto, Diana Soviero, Eleanor Steber, Giorgio Tozzi and Alberto Zedda. She has maintained an active studio in Manhattan since 1984.
About Musica Raritana and Andrew Kirkman
Andrew Kirkman formed this period instrument orchestra in 2004. Its aim is to provide a venue for students of the Mason Gross performance program to acquire experience in playing in period-instrument style. It mounts chamber and orchestral performances each semester, coached by senior players in the field. These have included the violinists Robert Mealy and Cynthia Roberts, cellists Myron Lutzke and Christine Gummere, oboist Geoffrey Burgess and flautist Sandra Miller. For “Athalia,” we will again be joined by Burgess and by baroque violinist Marika Holmqvist. Past programs include a reconstruction of C.P.E. Bach’s Hamburg benefit concert of 1786 (including music by C.P.E. and J.S. Bach), and classical programs, including Sturm und Drang music by Haydn, Vanhal and others, and “In the House of the Devil,” a program of dramatic music including Boccherini’s symphony of that name.
Kirkman came to Rutgers in 1997. He also directs Collegium Musicum, which has made two CDs on the DTR label. Kirkman is best known for his Renaissance vocal ensemble The Binchois Consort. The ensemble’s seven recordings, all on the Hyperion label, have received strong critical acclaim, winning most of the music industry’s prizes including Record of the Month and Early Music Disc of the Year in the classical music magazine Gramophone. The ensemble has performed throughout Europe and the United States. About Mason Gross School of the Arts Founded in 1976, Mason Gross School of the Arts is the arts conservatory of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and is home to the departments of dance, music, theater arts, and visual arts. Its faculty and alumni rosters include arts professionals recognized nationally and internationally. The school's enrollment of 625 undergraduates across four departments and 250 graduate students across three departments, combined with a faculty of 140, assures students the opportunity to work closely with accomplished artists within their fields.
About Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey A comprehensive research institution with more than 50,000 students on three main campuses in New Brunswick, Newark and Camden, Rutgers comprises one of the major state university systems in the nation. Chartered in 1766 in New Brunswick as Queen's College, Rutgers is the eighth oldest institution of higher learning in the nation and now comprises 29 degree- granting divisions, including 16 offering graduate programs of study.
|