`AMAHL' & FRIENDS WILL VISIT DEC. 7

"Amahl and the Night Visitors" will be presented Dec. 7 by the Southeast Missouri State University Music Theater Workshop and the University Theatre.

The English-language opera by Gian-Carlo Menotti will be performed after a 6 p.m. dinner at the Holiday Inn Convention Center. The University Singers, a strolling madrigal group, also will entertain.

Tickets are $25 and include dinner. They can be purchased through the Department of Music by calling 651-2141. The deadline for reserving tickets is Monday.

The 50-minute, one-act opera has become a Christmas-time tradition in many regions of the country since its premiere in 1951. It has not been performed at Southeast since the 1970s.

The opera will be directed by Dr. Chris Goeke, an assistant professor of music at Southeast. Dr. Sterling Cossaboom, chairman of the department, will conduct the University Orchestra.

The lighting and set design are by Dennis Seyer, an associate professor of theater at the university. Dr. Rob Dillon, an assistant professor of theater, is the consulting stage director. Marc Strauss is in charge of choreography.

A number of community members, many of them children, dot the 23-member chorus. The lead will be played by Jonathan Popp, 13, a student at L.J. Schultz School.

The other children include Amanda Dumey of Jackson and Elizabeth Fluegge of Cape Girardeau, both of whom will sing and dance; and J.E. Hill, Kody Neighbors, Lucas Kester, Kyle Meadows and Kate and Ben Caughlin, all of Cape Girardeau.

Two other performances of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" will be closed to the general public. One is for area school children and the other for the University Foundation.