Camp Hill Light Opera Experience to Present NOT A TENOR & PATIENCE, 6/13-16

Camp Hill Light Opera Experience, or CHLOE, will present two works, the award- winning new show, Not A Tenor, and perennial favorite Patience, by Gilbert & Sullivan, during its inaugural light opera festival, June 13-16, 2013, at the Grace Milliman Pollock PAC in Camp Hill.

Not A Tenor, a comic operetta written by Mechanicsburg resident Libby Moyer, was recently named a dual winner in Boston Metro Opera's 2013 International Composer's Competition. The work won not only the BMO Mainstage Award in Music Theater, but also the Gold Medal Award, which recognizes one work of outstanding quality in each category. As a result, Not A Tenor will receive fully-staged performances as part of Boston Metro Opera's regular season, and become part of their standard repertory.

Not A Tenor is a light, comic contemporary operetta in the tradition of works by Strauss, Lehar, Gilbert & Sullivan and Rodgers & Hart. It's full of melodic, hummable tunes and witty dialogue, has an absurd plot, and is good fun for most everyone. The work premiered in a one-act version in 2012.

Patience is considered by many Gilbert & Sullivan aficionados to be the wittiest and most charming of all their thirteen stage shows. The satire on fads and fashions is just as relevant today as when it was written, asking the question - how far would some people go to be popular? Central PA residents may be familiar with The Mikado or The Pirates of Penzance, but Patience has rarely, if ever, been performed in the midstate.

Emerging professional opera singers from New York City, Baltimore and around the country have been cast in the principal roles, and will be joined on stage by the best of local talent in the chorus and orchestra.

Playing dual lead roles are soprano Kimberly Christie as Julene Grant and Patience, mezzo Melissa Block as Sarah Souzay and Lady Angela, tenor Eapen Leubner as Robert d'Guillaume and the Duke of Dunstable, and baritone Michael Hix as Ross McCormick and Archibald Grosvenor. Also appearing in Patience are Lara C. Wilson as Lady Jane, Paul Sigrist as Reginald Bunthorne, and Jason Buckwalter as Colonel Calverley.

Tickets are $20 for adults, with a discount for attending both shows. Student tickets are just $5 and can be purchased in advance. There is also a group discount. An online box office is available at www.chloeopera.org, and tickets will be available at the door.

Camp Hill Light Opera Experience, or CHLOE, was created to present staged performances of well-known, unknown, and soon-to-be-known light opera and operetta of the highest possible quality standards, with a focus on new works, new composers and librettists, and new, young, and emerging talent, in an atmosphere of artistic collaboration between all involved.

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