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Opera aficionados and Broadway buffs may not always have the same idea of a perfect night out, but they’ve long agreed on one point: Kurt Weill’s “Street Scene” has something for everybody. Thanks to the University of Houston’s Edythe Bates Old Moores Opera Center, musical theater lovers of all stripes will soon get another look at this classic. The center kicks off its 2006 – 2007 season with a four-show run of “Street Scene” beginning at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 20, in the Moores Opera House. Buck Ross, director of the Moores Opera Center, compared Weill’s distinctly American opera to George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” “It requires operatic voices to do justice to the music and yet the music is often in a populist style,” Ross said. “Weill was a very sophisticated composer who wasn’t afraid of popular music, and who looked on the ‘Broadway’ style as having the most potential to reach a broader audience than a typical opera would.” Elmer Rice adapted “Street Scene’s” book from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play and Langston Hughes wrote the lyrics. It opened on Broadway in 1947. “Street Scene” follows the lives of several residents in a New York City brownstone building and their daily…and sometimes sad…interactions with each other. Although Weill’s opera was originally produced for the Great White Way, Ross said Houston audiences will enjoy one significant advantage to seeing the show at the Moores Opera House. “Our orchestra is much larger than a typical Broadway pit orchestra, so you will hear a richness of sound you never get on Broadway,” Ross said. General reserved seating tickets are $15; $10 for students and seniors. Ticket information can be obtained by calling 713-743-3313. For more information about the Moores Opera Center, visit www.music.uh.edu/mooresopera/index.html.
For more information about UH visit the university’s ‘Newsroom’ at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom. |
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