Pepperdine Opera Program to Present THE MAGIC FLUTE, 2/25 & 27

The Pepperdine University Flora L. Thornton Opera Program presents Mozart's most enduring comedy, The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), sung in the original German with English subtitles and dialogue in English, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and Saturday, February 25 and 27, at Smothers Theatre on Pepperdine's Malibu campus.

Tickets, priced at $20 for the public, $10 for Pepperdine students, and $16 for Pepperdine faculty and staff, are available now by calling the Pepperdine Center for the Arts Box Office at (310) 506-4522 or online at: http://arts.pepperdine.edu/

Henry Price, professor of music at Pepperdine University, directs the student cast, with Tony Cason conducting the Pepperdine University Orchestra.

This is the fourth time since 1995 that Pepperdine's Flora Thornton Opera Program presents The Magic Flute. According to program director Henry Price, the production will be very different from its forerunners. For the first time at Pepperdine, the opera will be sung in the original German with English supertitles. "So many of our students are going on into the profession, that they need to have this popular opera prepared in the original language," says Director Price.

Though the opera will be sung in the original language, all spoken dialogue will be in English. Director Price himself has meticulously restored all the original dialogue and translated it into English. "Much of the background of the story is lost in the standard versions. Many of the mysteries of the plot are clarified and the characters are more completely fleshed out," says Director Price. "Our student designer team is the best we've ever assembled. I can promise audience members a unique experience, whether they are operatic newcomers or old hands."

Pepperdine alumni now populate the rosters of many of the country's finest opera houses, including Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Jake Shideler, a 2010 Seaver College graduate, is now Manager of Artistic Operations at LA Opera and 2002 graduate Brian Speck is head of the Houston Grand Opera Studio.

A generous gift from the late Flora L. Thornton has enabled the University to enhance considerably the quality of its opera productions, its summer European opera studies workshops in Heidelberg, and its arts outreach programs. Recent productions include Die Fledermaus, Little Women, The Bartered Bride, The Marriage of Figaro, La boheme, L'elisir d'amore, The Merry Widow, and Cosi fan tutte.

To post a comment, you must register and login.