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CLP: Sarah Reese Lyric Theatre presents ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’
April 13 @ 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm
The Sarah Reese Lyric Theatre will perform “Orpheus in the Underworld” by Jacques Offenbach in English in two acts Saturday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m. and again Sunday, April 14, at 2 p.m. in McAlister Auditorium. The performances are free and open to the public and are part of Furman’s Cultural Life Program.
This is the work that started it all! When Parisian licensing agents, in 1858, lifted the four-character, one-act restrictions on “light stage works,” Jacques Offenbach and his librettists dusted off a larger-scale—and thus prohibited—work that had been prepared some time before. Unlike the zany plotlines of the composer’s 30 previous one-act works, it boldly tackled, with full irreverence, one of the most beloved legends of Greek mythology. Its unprecedented run at the Bouffes-Parisiens sparked the development of both the Viennese and British schools of operetta.
Differing significantly from the legend, Orpheus and wife Eurydice can’t stand each other. He has his eye on the nymph Chloë, while she has fallen for the shepherd Aristaeus (really Pluto, King of the Underworld). Jupiter intervenes—in the guise of a fly—as the story unfolds in true Offenbachian fashion. The musical score, described by one historian as “the most dazzling display of light, comic theater music in the history of the genre,” is capped off by the “galop infernale”—known to us as the “can-can.”
American tenor, Grant Knox is enjoying a varied career in opera, musical theater, concert and recital. He has appeared with the Cincinnati Opera, Atlanta Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Chautauqua Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, Ohio Light Opera, Asheville Lyric Opera, Lyric Opera Atlanta, Rochester Lyric Opera, Indianapolis Opera, and with Maestro Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Opera Festival.
Equally at home in concert repertoire, Knox has been engaged by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic, Greenville Symphony Orchestra/Chorale, Cobb Symphony, Peninsula Music Festival, Bach Ensemble of Cincinnati, Rochester Oratorio Society/Philharmonic, Constella Festival, Hendersonville Symphony and in recital at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Upcoming engagements include the tenor solos in Handel’s “Messiah” with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus, the tenor solos in Mendelssohn’s “Lobgesang” with the Peninsula Music Festival, and the tenor solos in Mozart’s “Requiem” and Bach’s “Magnificat” with the Greenville Chorale and Symphony.
Simón Gollo is recognized as a multifaceted and charismatic musician who enjoys a successful international career as a chamber musician, pedagogue, soloist and conductor. He is also a recording artist for the international recording label IBS Classical, and is represented, alongside the Reverón Piano Trio, by HALAC Artists and Meluk Kultur Management.
Gollo has appeared on countless stages across Europe, Asia and the American continent from Canada to Chile. His long career has led him to perform at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Cadogan Hall (London), the 92nd Street Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall (New York), the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Bolívar Hall (London), the Teatro Teresa Carreño (Caracas), the Auditorio Blas Galindo (Mexico City), the Auditorio Manuel de Falla (Granada), and the Teatro Mayor (Bogotá), and for renowned organizations such as the BBC Proms Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Chamber Music Society of Detroit.
He has collaborated in these performances with international figures such as Alessio Bax, Ricardo Morales, Dmitri Berlinsky, Monique Duphil, Edicson Ruiz, Paul Rosenthal, John Novacek, Alissa Margulis, Jakob Koranyi, Miguel da Silva (Ysaÿe Quartet), Richard Young (Vermeer Quartet), Randolph Kelly, and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, among many others.