A comedy to make you sing

It’s only once a year that Portland State’s Department of Music puts on an opera, and it’s that time again. This year the department’s pick is Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, an operetta with intertwined love stories reminiscent of one of Shakespeare’s comedies.

Tito Capobianco, a well-known stage director who has worked as Artistic Director for the Cincinnati, San Diego and Pittsburgh operas, is the guest stage director for the show. This is the fifth time he has helped the department with an opera production. It is his version of The Merry Widow, which he originally put together for the New York City Opera, that will be performed.

The department chose The Merry Widow for the sake of a little comedy. The show is an operetta, which is traditionally humorous.

“We haven’t done an operetta here in a while,” said Christine Meadows, artistic director for the show. “We want the students to be exposed to different styles and genres of opera. We also thought it would be a good fit for the students in our program this year.”

Most of the roles are indeed played by Portland State students, many of whom belong to the campus organization Student Opera At PSU (SOAP). Five performers from the community will sing chorus and act in the show, while the rest of the cast is made up of students from the Department of Music.

Portland State is the only university in Oregon that puts on a full annual opera production with an orchestra, and their hard work shows. The cast is a highly talented group with voices that shake the St. Mary’s auditorium, and the costumes and set are an impressively professional affair. Portland State’s Symphony Orchestra, led by Conductor Ken Seldon, will bring the show together.

While this is all currently funded by the Department of Music and ticket sales, the School of Fine and Performing Arts is in the process of raising an Opera Production Endowment to fund and support continuous opera production. Jeannine B. Cowles, a longstanding supporter of Portland State opera productions and 2010 Distinguished Professor in Residence, has agreed to match $100,000 for every $200,000 the department raises, with up to a donated $500,000 in total. The department recently met its first $200,000 mark.

Set in early twentieth century Paris, The Merry Widow revolves around two secret love affairs. Hannah and Danilo, who were in love at a young age but couldn’t marry because of Hannah’s poverty, meet again years later. Still both desperately in love, neither will admit their desires. Hannah, now widowed and left with a hefty sum of money, remains skeptical of Danilo’s intentions.

Meanwhile, an affair between the ambassador’s wife, Valencienne, and the aristocrat, Camille, is secretly underway. When both affairs cross paths, the result is a comedic fumbling that involves a false engagement and a whole lot of bluffing.

Originally written in German, the operetta premiered in Vienna in 1905. It has since been translated into many languages and has been performed in the United States and abroad.