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 2008-2009. 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
Connie Cappelli, President
But read on . . .
One of the things that make our Annual Meetings different is that they are usually very short, leaving time for music directly afterward. This year is no different, except that the music will be a dress rehearsal for members only for our public performance of The Emerald Isle (see below). We'd like to give our members a chance to become familiar with this wonderful piece.
It's interesting to note how Sullivan, having failed to achieve a popular success with the beautiful, romantic score for The Beauty Stone (1898), had adopted a lighter, more "musical comedy" manner in The Rose of Persia. The example he set there and in his Emerald Isle music surely pointed the way for German to succeed as a composer of Edwardian operettas in the new century. Had Sullivan lived, would he and Basil Hood have contributed further to that new genre? But perhaps we're happier leaving Sullivan in the Victorian era with just this one fragment of a 20th Century opera to speculate upon. It was premiered on the 27th of April, 1901, and ran for 205 performances. It is said that the haunting chorus that closes Act I was the last music Sir Arthur ever composed.
--Jonathan Strong
In the G&S canon, Princess Ida comes between Iolanthe and The Mikado. The opera premiered on January 5, 1884, at the Savoy Theatre and ran for 246 performances. It is the only three-act Gilbert & Sullivan opera and the only one with dialogue written in blank verse. As with a number of his other librettos, Gilbert hearkened back to his earlier writings for inspiration. He based the libretto for Princess Ida on his play The Princess of 1870, a play which he described as a "respectful per-version" of Tennyson's poem of the same name. If you have read that poem--or if you read it after you go home from our production--you'll be struck by the close similarities between the two plots.
Roughly twenty years before the opera begins, the infant son of one noble family was betrothed to the infant daughter of another. (Does that idea sound at all familiar?) The action takes place when the young prince and princess are about to be reunited, so that the marriage can take place. In the interim, however, the teen-aged Princess Ida has founded a women's college and forsworn all men. Can Gilbert get the "happy couple" together?
We know, of course, that he can. But getting there is much more than half the fun!
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. |
|
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.)
New this year--VLO is moving into the twenty-first century and providing an option to pay your membership dues (and make donations) via the Web. Just go to www.vlo.org, choose "Membership and Donations" from the menu on the left, then click on the appropriate button.
|
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: ________________________________________________ |
You may wish to return to the VLO Home Page.
|
Send Questions/Comments to:
info@vlo.org Feb. 15, 2008. |