Georgia Southern Opera to present ‘Mansfield Park’
The Georgia Southern Opera (GSO) will present Jonathan Dove’s opera Mansfield Park at the Emma Kelly Theatre at the Averitt Center for the Arts on Friday, Oct. 20 and Saturday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.
The production, based on the classic Jane Austen novel of the same title, Mansfield Park, is completely cast with Georgia Southern students and is directed by Stage and Program Director Arikka Gregory, D.M.A., and opera coach, conductor and pianist Jonathan Murphy, D.M.A.
Gregory promises a treat for music lovers and Jane Austen fans alike.
“Jane Austen’s novels are well represented in film, but a live theatre experience is rare, and a live musical theatre experience rarer yet,” she said. “Jonathan Dove and his librettist have streamlined the narrative to a more ideal dramatic pacing and have employed a vivid spectrum of compositional tools to illustrate each of the characters.”
The opera begins with the protagonist Fanny Price at the age of 18 and illustrates faithfully her complicated relationships with her more fortunate extended family as well as their ethically suspect friends.
“Jonathan Dove takes the events and interactions in Austen’s novel, those we might see in today’s hurried, over-stimulating and more open society as dull or trivial or repressed and turns them inside out,” says newly appointed Opera Coach/Conductor Jonathan Murphy. “His vibrant, expressive and sometimes playful score relates to the listener the inner drama and deep emotion of these characters.”
To learn more about GSO and other University ensembles, visit http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/music/ensembles/.
Georgia Southern University, a public Carnegie Doctoral/Research University founded in 1906, offers 118 degree programs serving 20,673 students. Through eight colleges, the University offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs built on more than a century of academic achievement. Georgia Southern is recognized for its student-centered and hands-on approach to education. Visit GeorgiaSouthern.edu.
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