Vive la France! Season Opening Spectacular at Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center

Dayton Opera kicks off the 2016–2017 Excite Season with a Season Opening Spectacular that pays homage to the beautiful country of France. The powerful forces of all three art forms of the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance—Dayton Opera, Dayton Ballet, and Dayton Philharmonic—will honor the great French composers who have written some of the most exquisite music ever.

Vocalists from Dayton Opera will perform excerpts from such magnificent French operatic works as Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah and Gounod’s Faust. Dayton Philharmonic will electrify the audience with orchestral excerpts from some of the most prominent French composers, including Berlioz, Massenet, Debussy, and Ravel. And Dayton Ballet will take the stage alongside Dayton’s finest musicians and singers to dance to some of the greatest French music that moves the soul, including a first-half finale fantastique—the famous “Bacchanale” from Samson and Delilah.

The second half of the Season Opening Spectacular will explore a little of the lighter side of the French repertoire, including music from Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, and in a continued nod to all things French, Dayton Opera vocalists will perform a few favorites from the hit musical Les Misérables. Dayton Opera, Dayton Ballet, and Dayton Opera invite you to a very special tour de force of performing arts that will have everyone raving “Vive la France!”