Sarasota Opera returns with a ‘Happy Deception’
A new Sarasota Opera season gets underway this weekend with the opening of Rossini’s one-act comic opera “The Happy Deception.” Soprano Hanna Brammer stars as the Duchess Isabella, who disappears and washes ashore in a small mining town, where she is taken in and cared for by a kindly miner, played by bass/baritone Alexander Charles Boyd (Brammer’s real-life husband). Tenor Christopher Bozeka plays her grieving husband, Duke Bertrando. The company also includes bass Joshua DeVane and baritone Joseph Beutel. Artistic Director Victor DeRenzi leads a smaller-than-usual orchestra and Martha Collins is the stage director. The production kicks off a four-show season that runs through April with shorter and more intimate productions to allow for social distancing and enhanced safety protocols. “The Happy Deception” will be presented live in the Sarasota Opera House for six performances through Feb. 25, and will later be made a
Gayle Williams, Correspondent
Sarasota Orchestra musicians are handling the adversity and challenges of the pandemic with aplomb. Thursday’s debut of “Serioso,” the latest of their live concerts in Holley Hall, showed off serious talent and considerable ensemble strength in three widely diverse compositions, the last of which knocked our socks off.
Violinist Christopher Takeda took the lead in the absence of a conductor and the results were rock solid in Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in F Major, Op. 6 No. 12. The ensemble of 11 string musicians, joined by Jonathan Spivey on harpsichord, confidently captured Corelli’s Baroque style and spirit.
Arts events for Sarasota Manatee: Jan. 28-Feb. 3
Our weekly guide to the performing and visual arts in the Sarasota-Manatee area.
Key Chorale goes for Baroque
Like other organizations that have been experimenting with digital performances and testing how many artists they can safely bring together in one space, Key Chorale is expanding its group of musicians for its “Bach Together Again” concert that makes its digital debut Friday. Artistic Director Joseph Caulkins said he chose the Baroque program, which features Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Magnificat,” because of the joyful and uplifting qualities in the music. It features the Key Chorale Chamber singers, orchestra musicians and soloists. It will be available on the group’s website through Feb. 21. keychorale.org
Sarasota Orchestra gets ‘Serioso’ in new chamber concert
Susan L. Rife, Correspondent
George Walker, the first Black man to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, was just 24 years old when he composed his first string quartet, titled “Lament,” in memorial to his grandmother, who had escaped slavery, lost a husband when he was sold, and lived to a great age. When Walker heard the quartet performed by string orchestra, he reworked the “Lament” and retitled it “Lyric for Strings.”
“It has its moments of anguish and pain and loss, but it’s also beautiful and sweet,” said Nathan Frantz, violist for the Sarasota Orchestra, which will perform the Walker piece beginning Thursday as part of its “Serioso” program. It’s short, six or seven minutes long, one of those pieces that you come away from feeling good, even if on the surface it can sound sort of pained and anguished. I don’t think it’s as emotional, not as pained as the Barber Adagio. It’s sad, for sur
Sarasota Orchestra musicians continue to deliver the bright light and healing of live classical music in their most recent series at Holley Hall titled “Inspirations.” Despite the distanced seating and required face masks, these concerts are a window to an earlier time of normal life when the communal enjoyment of live performances was taken for granted.
Although ushers attend to the strict adherence of safety measures and there is little to no interaction among separate parties attending the concert, the music does its job well by taking us to another place and time.
The shortened concert featured only two of the three works originally scheduled, but Antonin Dvorak’s Nocturne in B Major, Op. 40 and Josef Suk’s Serenade for Strings, Op. 6, were beautifully paired and performed. (Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw’s “Entr’Acte” was dropped from the program at the last minute because of what the orchestra said was “unexpected circumstances.”)