Southeast operas seek to change genre's stuffy image

The performances Jan. 23 and 25 at the Bedell Performance Hall will be opera -- but not that kind of opera.

Southeast Missouri State University professor and show director Dr. Chris Goeke says this performance is engaging and funny, and that the vague, stuffy image you have in your head after hearing the word "opera" is dead wrong.

"Most people think it's boring and it's just an old lady singing something you can't understand," he said. "But most people aren't familiar with opera."

The show he's directing is two one-act operas back-to-back -- a Gian Carlo Menotti-penned double feature he says will change viewer's notions of what opera can be.

"I love doing one-acts because you get a really defined narrative right off the bat," he explained. "Plus, they're not all-night affairs."

The first is "Amahl and the Night Visitors," a re-imagining of what the three wise men's trip to Bethlehem.

"It's a little more melodic than Menotti is typically known for," Goeke said, which sets the stage for "Amelia Goes to the Ball," a piece more in keeping with Menotti's characteristic style.

"It was [Menotti's] first mature work straight out of college," he said. "To think that a 22-year-old wrote that? It's really phenomenal."

Goeke characterized "Amelia's" sound as unconventional, an exemplary piece of 20th-century opera by a Pulitzer-winning composer.

"It's extremely challenging musically," he said. "Very intricate, very high ranges, and they have to know exactly what they're saying in Italian for any of the action to come across."

The plot follows Amelia, a young Italian beauty, in her strange endeavors to attend an evening ball. Audience members need not speak Italian, though. Captions will be projected on a giant screen above the stage, featuring a translation by none other than Goeke himself.

"The translation that came with the play has a tendency to be too floral, poetic in parts," he said, explaining some jokes don't land properly without certain nuances. "There's one part where you have to understand that he's insulting [the ensemble]. He's telling them to shut up, but that didn't come across."

Goeke was quick to meniton the translation is family-friendly.

"We're the only source for opera between St. Louis and Memphis," Goeke said of Southeast's River Campus. "I challenge people to come see the show before they make their judgement on what opera is. You might think that opera is long and dull, but Menotti is not."

Tickets are $16 and are available at the River Campus box office and online.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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