2008 Season

The 22nd Season of the Delaware Valley Opera highlighedt two of Opera’s most notorious “bad boys:” Don Giovanni and Don Pasquale. The season also offered Divas on the Delaware, highlights from favorite operas featuring singers from the new DVO Opera Training Program, and a program of Broadway delights by the amazing lyricist, Yip Harburg.

Delaware Valley Opera : 2008 Season

 
Don Giovanni

Performances

August 3 Tusten Theatre
August 10 Seelig Theatre
August 15 Ritz Theater

Don Giovanni, by Mozart (in Italian)

Don Giovanni, based on the character of Don Juan, is probably the most notorious womanizer in literature. Mozart’s opera, considered by some as the most perfect wedding of music and drama, presents a fine balance of the comic and tragic aspects of his amorous exploits. Mozart’s Don Giovanni comes alive as a character one cannot help but love and hate simultaneously. His final judgement at the opera’s end is one of the most stunning in all of Opera.

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Don Giovanni

Performances

August 2 Seelig Theatre
August 8 Tusten Theatre
August 17 Tusten Theater

Don Pasquale, by Donizetti (in English)

Overweight, overconfident and over-the-hill, Don Pasquale fancies himself a romantic prize for a beautiful young woman. While pursing such a marriage to spite his lovesick young nephew, his family, friends and even the servants conspire to teach him a painful lesson about the true value of love. Norina, the object of his affections, serves as a feminist’s role model, as she uses her strong will and resourcefulness to control the circumstances surrounding her.

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Don Giovanni

Performances

July 26 Ritz Theatre
July 27 Seelig Theatre
August 15 Tusten Theater

Divas on the Delaware

Singers dressing onstage? – shocking! Instrumentalists walking into the middle of a scene? – unheard of! Performers flirting with audience members? – the very nerve! Don’t come expecting opera as usual when the DVO presents Divas on the Delaware, a program of favorite opera highlights by Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and others. Featured will be singers (male and female) from the new DVO Opera Training Program and instrumental ensemble in a lively, engaging and unusual program sure to attract opera lovers and novices alike.

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Don Giovanni

Performances

July 25 Tusten Theatre
August 1 Tusten Theatre
August 16 Seelig Theater

The Wizard of Verse

Collaborating with such composers as George Gershwin, Harold Arlen and Burton Lane, Yip Harburg became famous in Hollywood, on Broadway and in popular music, writing lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, Finian's Rainbow, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?, and many others. Bass Eric Barsness, mezzo soprano Carol Diefenbach, soprano Jody Weatherstone and DVO Director Jim Blanton at the piano breathe new life into Somewhere Over the Rainbow, It's Only a Paper Moon, April in Paris and other favorites. For those who find today's popular music a bit "shocking," Blanton's rendition of “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” is bound to surprise.

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2007 Season


Norma
, By Bellini
La Perichole, By Offenbach
Naughty Operetta
Opera Highlights