Xerxes continues Pocket Opera collaboration with NDNU
Steven Laird
Issue date: 4/24/08 Section: Entertainment
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The Pocket Opera has partnered with the NDNU music and theatre departments for a series of plays to take place at NDNU and the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco.
The mastermind behind Pocket Opera is founder and artistic director Donald Pippin who translates Handel's bizarre and complex musical masterpiece into a contemporary and usually humorous form with just eight players.
Pippin also conducts from his digital harpsichord and narrates the stories of the operas.
NDNU and Pocket Opera have been partners in opera productions and training since 2004 with their first production of Mozart's The Magic Flute.
NDNU students rehearse and perform in an apprenticeship with Pocket Opera professionals.
"They send us some of their singers, and we send them some of ours… It's a symbiotic relationship," said Debra Lambert, chair of the department of music and vocal arts.
A San Francisco native, Pippin has translated approximately 80 operas into English and presents them in the clearest form because "there is a form of opera where, if you don't know the story on the way to the theatre, you won't know it on the way home either."
His operas are known for using a small chamber orchestra and minimal costumes and props.
Soprano Aimee Puentes sang the role of Romilda in Xerxes.
Donald Pippin received an honorary doctorate from NDNU in 2007.
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