Mary Brennan, mary.brennan@asu.edu
(480) 965-3587
Februarty 14, 2003

Lyric Opera Theatre performs one of Handel's last Italian operas - Xerxes

WHAT: Lyric Opera Theatre opera: Xerxes
WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Feb. 28, March 1, 2, 7, 8; 2:30 p.m., March 9
WHERE: Evelyn Smith Music Theatre, Music Building, 40 E. Gammage Parkway, Tempe
TICKETS: $14 general, $12 faculty/staff/seniors, $5 students
INFORMATION: 480-965-6447

Unrequited love, comedic misunderstandings, mistaken identities and Stephen Wadsworth's libretto translation all contribute to the ASU production of Handel's Xerxes performed by the Herberger College School of Music's award-winning Lyric Opera Theatre.

The opera will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28, March 1, 2, 7 and 8, with a 2:00 p.m. matinee on March 9. The venue is the Evelyn Smith Music Theatre in the Music Building on the main ASU campus in Tempe, 40 E. Gammage Parkway. Tickets are $14 general, $12 faculty/staff/seniors and $5 students. Call the Herberger College Box Office, 480-965-6447. A pre-performance lecture will be held at 1 p.m. before the March 9 matinee.

Lyric Opera Theatre chose to use the English translation and adaptation by Wadsworth, which has wowed audiences across the country from New York to Seattle; New York City Opera is slated to perform Wadsworth's translation and adaptation of Xerxes in Spring 2004. According to The New Yorker magazine, "Stephen Wadsworth's ingenious translation of the Italian text updates the language without undercutting the bucolic innocence of this marital comedy." The Wall Street Journal review states that the Wadsworth production is "One of the most compelling operatic and theatrical experiences to be had anywhere."

The ASU production is under the direction of noted director Dale Dreyfoos, professor of music, and associate director/ resident stage director for the Lyric Opera Theatre. It features an orchestra under the direction of John Metz, professor of harpsichord and director of early music studies at ASU. Metz and the musicians are recreating what 18th-century audiences would hear when attending a performance of Xerxes at London's Royal Academy of Music. Handel was the institution's composer in residence in the early to mid 1700s and wrote many of his Italian operas during that period.

Xerxes was one of the last operas that Handel wrote before turning to the English oratorio genre and was one of his rare forays into comedy. The majority of his operas were based on historical, mythological or legendary subjects. In the 1700s, one of the main attractions to Handel's operas was the opportunity to hear the "castrati," male singers whose soprano voices has been surgically preserved from childhood. In modern performances, castrati roles are either performed by women or sung by men in a transposed key. The Lyric Opera Theatre production of Xerxes features female mezzo-sopranos in the male roles of Xerxes, the king of Persia, and his brother, Arsamene.

Wadsworth has translated two other operas by Handel, Alcina and Partenope, as well as operas by Monteverdi, Mozart, and Udo Zimmermann. He has also translated and adapted Molière's Don Juan and Goldoni's La Locandiera. He wrote the opera, A Quiet Place, with Leonard Bernstein and has directed operas at La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Netherlands Opera, Scottish Opera and San Francisco Opera and many other companies, including Seattle Opera, where he directed a new production of Wagner's Ring in 2001.