Summer Sounds: "Idol" to Devou and More

Where’s the opera doc?

Apologies to Bugs Bunny,  but that is the question this month, as Cincinnati Opera moves from Music Hall to church, to the Zoo and to its own “Opera Idol” singing contest.  The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra has lots of fun in store, too, at Devou Park Amphitheater in Covington.

Cincinnati Opera is onstage at Music Hall with Verdi’s “Otello” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday (July 7 and 10).  Based on Shakespeare’s tragedy, "Otello" is gourmet fare for Verdians -- indeed, all opera fans.  The Italian master -- over 70 at the time of composition - distilled his consummate artistry here, with a perfectly shaped libretto by Arrigo Boito.

Antonello Palombi

Maria Luigia Borsi

Tom Fox

Star tenor Antonello Palombi is the jealous moor.  Soprano Maria Luigia Borsi, radiant-voiced standout at Cincinnati Opera’s Gala Concert in June, is Otello’s innocent bride Desdemona.  Baritone Tom Fox, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music graduate and Cincinnati Opera alumnus, is the arch-villain Iago, who has the devil’s own liturgy to sing with his chilling “Credo.”  Mezzo-soprano and fellow CCM alum Catherine Keen sings Iago’s wife/Desdemona’s maid Emilia, with tenor Russell Thomas – another gala standout – as Otello’s lieutenant and Iago’s pawn Cassio.  Tenor Gregory Turay is the ill-fated Roderigo who also falls victim to Iago’s treachery.  Bass Denis Sedov is the Venetian ambassador Lodovico and baritone Michael Young the Herald.  The Cincinnati Opera Chorus play an important role and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra will be in the pit.

Robert Spano

Conducting will be Atlanta Symphony Orchestra music director Robert Spano.  The production, a traditional one, is designed by Allen Charles Klein.  Bernard Uzan will direct.  The opera will be sung in Italian with English surtitles.  Note: “Otello” clocks in considerably earlier than Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger.”  With two intermissions, expect to get out circa 10:45 p.m.

Tickets are $26-$157 at www.cincinnatiopera.org or call (513) 241-2742.

The Opera’s new “American Idol” look-alike, “Opera Idol” invites the public to cast its vote at 7 p.m. Thursday in Jarson-Kaplan Theater at the Aronoff Center for the Arts.  The semi-finalists were chosen by professional judges in open auditions in June.  They are: bass Mark Aiken, 21, a voice major at Miami University; soprano Lauren Bridges, 18, of Batavia; tenor Ciro Del Gaudio, 49, of Fairfield; soprano Melissa Eppinger, 29, of Cincinnati; soprano Denise Luebbe, 42, of Cincinnati and Queretaro, Mexico; countertenor Michael Match, 31, of Cincinnati; mezzo-soprano Kaila Ruiz, 22, of Erlanger, Kentucky; baritone Kobe Smith, 26, of Cold Spring, Kentucky; soprano Emetine Thomsen, 34, of Cincinnati; mezzo-soprano Shannon Wilson, 25, a voice major at Northern Kentucky University.

 Each contender will sing an operatic excerpt at Thursday’s concert and the audience will be asked to cast ballots.  Winners will have their performances posted on the web for a final online vote.  The top winner, to be announced July 21 preceding the opening night of “La Boheme” at Music Hall, will receive a $3,500 contract with Cincinnati Opera.  Last year’s winner was soprano Diane Russo.

Tickets are $10 at www.cincinnatiopera.org or call (513) 621-2787.  For further information, including bios of the contestants, visit www.cincinnatiopera.org

Head for the pews at Allen Temple A.M.E. Church at 7 p.m. Friday for one of the Opera’s most successful community programs, “Opera Goes to Church” in its fifth annual incarnation.

Morris Robinson

A mix of gospel, jazz and classical music, the popular event features the incomparable bass Morris Robinson, unquestioned hit of the June Opera Gala, when he made a surprise appearance to sing “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”  Robinson,  who rocked the Temple last year (he also sang a chilling Grand Inquisitor in Cincinnati Opera’s 2009 “Don Carlo”) will be joined by soprano Jacqueline Echols, the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church Combined Choir led by Robert Gazaway, the Christian Howes Jazz Quartet with pianist/organist Bobby Floyd and vocalist Tyshawn Colquitt.  News anchor Courtis Fuller of WLWT-TV will return as host. (Read more about Robinson in "Features" on this site, "Ex-Gridiron Hero Tackles Grand Inquisitor.")

Admission is free, but tickets are required (limit two per household).  To reserve, call (513) 241-2742.

Bastille Day is not until July 14, but singers from Cincinnati Opera join the revolution -- Classical Revolution, that is -- beginning at 8:30 p.m. July 11 and ending at 1 a.m. July 12 at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club, 318 Eighth Street downtown.  They will be accompanied by Opera chorus master Henri Venanzi in favorites by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Delibes and Offenbach.  All part of Classical Revolution's storming of the barricades separating classical music from the society as a whole.

Learn more about Classical Revolution (a worldwide movement) in "Chamber Music on the Tab at Northside Tavern" (Features) and "Classical Revolution" (Blog) on this site.

Cincinnati Opera will go “home” to the Zoo at 6 p.m. July 13.  Opera artistic director Evans Mirageas and Thane Maynard, executive director of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens will host a concert in the Wings of Wonder Theater, recalling the incredible half-century when the Zoo rang with the voices of some of the most famous opera singers in the world (also peacocks, seals and elephants).  Soprano Meghan Dewald, tenor John Christopher Adams and baritone Nathan Stark, accompanied by pianist Carol Walker, will help recreate those moments with highlights from “La Boheme,” “The Barber of Seville,” “La Traviata” and the rapturous tenor-baritone duet from “The Pearl Fishers” by Georges Bizet.  Mirageas and Maynard will provide their own colorful commentary on the long Zoo-Opera relationship.  There will be a complimentary dessert reception at 7:30 p.m. at the Zoo Lodge.

Admission is free, but tickets are required and may be reserved by calling (513) 24 1-2742.  Free parking (after 5 p.m.) will be available in the Safari Camp parking lot.  Enter through the Historic Vine Street Village entrance.

  Forget your BWV's and come to the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra's "We've Got Your Bach" at 7:30 p.m. July 10 in Devou Park Amphitheater in Covington.  The concert, which opens the KSO's 16th summer season at Devou, will be led by music director James R. Cassidy.  Hear Bach in  stirring orchestral arrangements by Leopold Stokowski, including his "Little Fugue" in G Major, Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor and Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D Minor with violinist Mauricio Aguiar (Aguiar will perform some of the variations unaccompanied, as Bach wrote it, the KSO will perform others in Stokowski's transcription).

Aguiar also will perform Bach's Violin Concerto in A Minor, flutist Susan Magg with be soloist in Bach's Suite No. 2 for Orchestra in B Minor and the KSO brasses will perform Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (transcribed by Ralph Sauer of Summit Brass).  (BWV refers to "Bach Werke Verzeichnis," the numbering system used for Bach's music.)

In recognition of Bach’s biological as well as musical productivity (he had 20 children), there will be prizes for the largest nuclear and extended family in attendance.

Admission and parking are free, though a $5 donation is suggested.  There will be free shuttle service from Covington Catholic High School on Dixie Highway in Park Hills from 6 to 7:30 p.m. and after the concert.

Other concerts in the series are August 7 and September 4, both beginning at 7:30 in Devou Park Amphitheater.

“Fun Fun Fun” August 7 will feature the KSO Boogie Band and eight vocalists in a nostalgic program from the days of rotary phones and ten-cent coffee.  Hear hits by The Beach Boys, Petula Clark, The Monkees, Supremes, Elvis and more.  Guests are invited to wear period clothing, dance and sing along.

For “Cirque Devou” September 4, the KSO will feature Circus Mojo.  There will be high-wire acts, acrobats, clowns and music  by Fucik, Johann Strauss, Khachaturian, Stravinsky and others.

P.S.:  Vote for the KSO on Facebook to be one of 200 winners of Chase Community Giving’s $5 million donation to local charities. You can vote once a day until voting ends.  Winners will be announced July 13.