Going To The Opera

It happened in Shawshank Redemption. Tim Robbins locks the door to he warden's office, and plays a record that he broadcasts to the prison yard. Glorious music. He is sent to solitary, but when he returns, he says that he was not alone, because Mr. Mozart was there with him in the darkness.

I'm not a musician, I paint with a brush, and cook with green and red peppers…music has been a gift from my husband who grew up with it. He hums along as we sit together, and I nudge him with my elbow.

Last weekend, we went to The Marriage of Figaro. The Barre Opera House was full. The story is silly; it's a bedroom farce that forms the outline for exquisite sound. The company pushed the story to almost slapstick….terrific… I think we were meant to laugh when it was written. What could be more wonderful than to laugh and to listen to beauty?

Opera is unique, the more familiar it becomes, the more it becomes part of inner joy. I think that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would have been proud.

I hope you were there to hum along.

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'Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata' [The Marriage of Figaro or the Day of Madness], is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (1784).

Although the play by Beaumarchais was at first banned in Vienna because of its satire of the aristocracy, considered dangerous in the decade before the French revolution, the opera became one of Mozart's most successful works.

When Taras Kulish, artistic director of the Green Mountain Opera picked the opera for its fourth season, he allegedly told Doreen Simko, president of the cultural center, "no dying in 2009."

In previous years the opera had produced Madama Butterfly and La Traviata, both tragedies. So this year, a comedy was chosen.

In this production, Andrew Wilkowske played Figaro.

Earlier this season, he sang in the North American premiere of Howard Shore's 'The Fly' at the Los Angeles Opera and sang Geppetto in Jonathan Dove's 'The Adventures of Pinocchio' at the Minnesota Opera. He also sang the lead in Figaro with the Acadiana Symphony in New Orleans.

Figaro's intended, Susanna, was played by Jennifer Aylmer who began her season this year with debuts at the Nashville Opera in 'Student Prince' and the Florentine Opera in the title role of 'Semele.' She also returned to the Opera Boston in 'The Bartered Bride' and to the Gardner Museum for the music of tin pan alley at a recital.

Upcoming engagements include the 'Barber of Seville' at the Metropolitan and Gluck's 'Orfeo ed Euridice' with the Portland Opera.

Count Almaviva, the philandering employer of both of them was played by Phillip Addis. He is a baritone from Canada and will be playing Pelleas in Debussy's ' Pelleas et Melisande' at the Opera Comique in Paris and will be singing in 'The Elixir of Love' in the Atlanta Opera.

He first performed 'The Marriage of Figaro' in its native Italian at the Florida Grand Opera this past season and this season played Mercello in a new production of 'La Boheme' at the Theater Basel as well as at L'Opera de Montreal where he played Zurga in 'Les Pecheurs de perles.'