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VLO News


Annual Meeting Edition

January, 2006

CALL TO ANNUAL MEETING

The Thirty-first Annual Meeting of Valley Light Opera, Inc., will be held on Thursday, March 2, in the auditorium of the Amherst Regional Middle School, Chestnut Street, Amherst, Massachusetts at 7:45 p.m.

The agenda for the meeting will include announcements and action on reports from officers of the corporation and from committees, as well as election of the Board of Directors for 2006-2007. The Board does not anticipate any other business, but questions and suggestions from members of the VLO are always in order.

The Board of Directors
Glen Gordon, President

But read on . . .

One of the things that make our Annual Meetings different is that they are usually very short. This leaves time for entertainment. The program at this year's meeting will be very special. Over the years we have used the Annual Meeting to do a number of different things--introduce new people to Gilbert and Sullivan, try out new works, present works of different composers, and even on one occasion present a newly reconstructed Gilbert and Sullivan work, Thespis. This year we're trying out a new (to us) SWOG (Sullivan without Gilbert) work, The Chieftain, which dates from the 1890s. The librettist is Francis Burnand, better known for his earlier collaboration with Sullivan, Cox and Box.

The Gondoliers next fall

Next, look for the Audition Edition of the VLO News in March, which will contain information about auditions for next fall's production, The Gondoliers. It will be our thirty-second fall show. In addition to singing, though, there are lots of jobs in VLO, and we're looking for volunteers: folks who have interest, time and energy and want to learn more about how a community theater really works. Can you work with sets, sew costumes, do make-up or publicity? Organize the ushers or sell souvenirs? Just let us know what you'd like to do. For most jobs experience is not required and you decide how much time you are able to give!

What's so special about The Chieftain?

Sullivan's comic opera The Chieftain is actually a re-make, or to be exact a re-make and a sequel combined. In 1867 Sullivan and Francis Burnand, who had already collaborated successfully on Cox and Box, wrote a comic opera called The Contrabandista, which was produced by German Reed (who also produced several works by Gilbert around this time, including Ages Ago and A Sensation Novel). In 1894, while Gilbert was collaborating with another composer on His Excellency, Sullivan and Burnand revised The Contrabandista, telescoping the two acts of the original into one act and adding an entirely new second act that picked up where The Contrabandista had left off. The Chieftain, as the "new" opera was called, opened at the Savoy on December 12, 1894. Despite an excellent score by Sullivan and a cast that included such familiar Savoyards as Richard Temple and Rosina Brandram, it lasted for fewer than a hundred performances.

The story describes a tribe of bandits who live in a mountain pass in Spain (not far from another pass where Carmen and her bandits live). The chieftain of these bandits absconded with their gold a year ago and has been missing ever since. The remaining bandits have decided that their laws require them to forcibly anoint the first stranger who comes through the pass as their new chieftain and marry him off to the fearsome wife of the missing chieftain. The tale gets more and more complicated, as one might expect, but it is mostly a framework on which Sullivan gave us some of his most tuneful music. VLO will be singing all of it and telling the story through a combination of a Jonathan Strong narration and snippets of dialog.

You can be a part of it:

We invite you to come and sing with us. The spring productions are an excellent chance to get to know VLO, because there are no auditions and no memorization. We'll be rehearsing at the Middle School at 7:30 on Monday evenings, starting Jan. 9, but you can join us even if you've missed the first rehearsal. Contact Bill Venman (549-1098) for more information. Our performance at the Annual Meeting will also be the "dress" rehearsal for a concert on Saturday evening, March 4, to benefit the disaster relief fund of the American Red Cross.

The concert will be sponsored in part by Wingate at South Hadley, which has a long tradition of quality health care, community and compassion.

Valley Light Opera is on the World Wide Web!

VLO has a Web site! Michael D. Bathrick, President of BerkshireNet, donates space on internet service provider BerkshireNet. Kurt Gordon is our WebMaster. Check us out at www.vlo.org! You will find information about VLO and, in addition, links to other G&S Web sites throughout the nation.

SavoyNet

-- Another note about the Internet and Gilbert and Sullivan --

Here's another G&S resource. SavoyNet is the international Gilbert and Sullivan Bulletin Board. It offers a chance to communicate with G&S lovers all over the world. To subscribe, without obligation, send an e-mail message to list-serv@bridgewater.edu (leaving the "Subject" line blank) that says only subscribe savoynet [your full name] and instructions will follow.

Membership Renewal Time!

Finally, it's Membership Time. If you haven't become a member of VLO before, why not consider it now? Membership provides valuable support for Valley Light Opera, which gets all of its income from members, friends and patrons. None comes from advertising! Almost everyone in VLO is a volunteer. At $10 for individuals and $15 for families, annual dues for VLO are among the best deals in town. Membership puts you in a special category of VLO supporters. We send you advance notification by first class mail of ticket sales for the annual fall production and you get a vote at the Annual Meeting. Just fill in the form below and mail it with your check (or bring them to the Annual Meeting). It's that easy! (And, if you wish, you can make an additional, tax-deductible donation.)


Cut off and mail to:
 
 
Valley Light Opera, Inc.
P. O. Box 2143
Amherst, MA 01004-2143

Individual membership:$10 _____
Family membership:$15 _____
Additional donation (optional)$ _______

Name:______________________________________________________________________
Address:______________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________ZIP__________________
 
Phone:________________ Email: ________________________________________________

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Send Questions/Comments to: info@vlo.org
Jan. 11, 2006.