Fanfare for the Women

Libby Larsen

Selections from Patience

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

How to Write Your Own Gilbert & Sullivan Opera

Anna Russell

Oedipus Tex

P. D. Q. Bach (1807-1742)?

Mary Annarella, Catherine Auger, Caralyn Ballou, Patricia Boyle, Darlene H. Brunzell, Esta Busi, Cathy Butterfield, Rosemary Caine, Geert de Vries, Helena Donovan, Louise Doud, Jim Ellis, John Foster, Glen Gordon, Kurtiss Gordon, Margaret Green, Al Hudson, Kevin Hutchinson, Marese Dolan Hutchinson, Paul Kaplan, Michelle Kaskey, Shelly Kellman, Linda Leavis, Elysse Link, Joe Lonstein, Mzamo P. Mangaliso, Alan McArdle, Kathy Moser, Dick Mudgett, Yvonne Nicholson, Jean Lorelle Paul, Paul E. Peelle, Liz Smith, Dick Stromgren, Valerie Valentini, Elaine Walker, Jim Walker, Sylvia Walker, Martin Wobst, Susan Zup

Violins	Wendy Foxmyn, Linda S. Greenebaum, Elaine Holdsworth, Bob McGuigan, Robert Mertz, Diana Peelle, Donald White
Violas	Joseph Contino, Nancy Hoople, Judy Hudson
Cellos	Barbara Davis, Janet O'Rourke, Louise Pressman
Bass	Allen Davis
Flutes	Susan Dunbar, Patricia Devine
Oboe	Katherine Hudson
Clarinets	Miriam Jenkins, Jim Henle
Bassoon	George Howard
Trumpets	Sheldon Ross, John Jenkins
French horns	Jim Chapman, Peggy Chapman
Trombone	Ben Smar
Percussion	Peter Venman, Susan Dunbar
Harmonium	Cathy Bennett

Rehearsal accompanists	Cathy Bennett, Glen Gordon
Chorus preparation	Kathy Moser
Audiotaping	Kenneth Walker
Program	Kurtiss Gordon

The idea of a spring show goes back to the early years of the Valley Light Opera, when we thought it would be a good idea to have entertainment at the Annual Meeting. We like to sing and we like the chance to get together in the spring to do something less demanding than our fall productions. We like to try different music. We occasionally want to try some things out informally before putting them into full-scale production (The Sorcerer was previewed this way) or to try something without ever thinking that it will be produced (Sousa's El Capitan, for instance). Once we wanted to explore "lost" music and did a whole concert of numbers that had been cut from G&S operas. Then occasionally we want to do something just for fun--like most of tonight's program.

Libby Larsen composed "Fanfare for the Women" to celebrate the opening of the University of Minnesota Women's Sports Pavilion in 1993. At the premiere, the trumpet soloist stood alone in the center of the basketball court. The music is composed to create layers of tonality which overlap in space. At the end of the ceremony, the manuscript was placed in a time capsule and sealed in the cornerstone of the building. Trumpeter Sheldon Ross suggested this piece knowing that Friday night's performance is a benefit for the University Women's Scholarship Fund.

Next fall's VLO show will be Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience. The VLO presented Patience for the first time in 1983. We hope that tonight's selections will remind you of some of the wonderful music to be heard next fall and serve to whet your appetite for our return to Gilbert and Sullivan. The overture contains many of the finest melodies from the opera, particularly the wonderful trumpet solo that comes right at the beginning. We also chose two choruses, the first an (almost) unaccompanied chorus, which begins with a sextet, sung in the opera by Ella, Saphir, Angela, the Duke, Major Murgatroyd, and Colonel Calverley. The second chorus concludes Act 1 and finds the principals (the sextet plus Patience, Jane, Bunthorne, and Grosvenor) in their usual conflict-laden situation.

The middle section of tonight's program will introduce our audience to Gilbert and Sullivan through the wit of the wonderful English soprano/comedienne, Anna Russell. Anna Russell, now 86 years old, lives in Canada. One of her best known numbers is a complete analysis of Wagner's cycle in fifteen minutes. You have to hear it to believe it. In a very real sense, "How To Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera" does exactly the same thing for G&S. You'll never listen to G&S again in the same way! Mary Jane Schulze is a long-time soloist with the VLO and a wonderful comedienne in her own right, and has sung almost all of the contralto roles. Glen Gordon has been with the VLO since the very beginning, as a chorus tenor, frequently as accompanist, and every now and again in a principal role.

Tonight's pièce de resistance, an oratorio by P. D. Q. Bach (cathartically edited, with pathos, by Peter Schickele) is a new venture for the VLO. We've done our share of serious music (including one other oratorio, Sullivan's The Prodigal Son, which we performed in the same year we last did Patience, 1983). We've done music that is fun to sing and fun to listen to. But we've never done music like Oedipus Tex. Geert de Vries brought it to a meeting of the Board of Directors last fall and suggested that we take a look at it. We did, and one listen did it. It became the core of the spring concert. What can we say about Peter Schickele, who gives the impression of having more real fun with music than the law should allow? Peter Schickele has brought his ensemble to UMass at least twice over the years and played to full houses. He has a regular NPR radio program, "Schickele Mix." He writes serious music, and very well. But he has the most fun with P. D. Q. Bach. Oedipus Tex is the classic Greek story of Oedipus Rex, as we're sure you'll recognize--but with a difference. We still have trouble getting through it without laughing. We hope you'll feel the same way!

Valley Light Opera, Inc., is a nonprofit Massachusetts corporation founded in 1975 by a group of Gilbert and Sullivan devotees. As a community group, VLO promotes broad participation and produces fine entertainment. Over the years, the Valley Light Opera has produced all fourteen of the G&S operas as well as Cox and Box, The Zoo, and Sullivan's oratorio The Prodigal Son. In addition, VLO has performed Rudolf Friml's The Vagabond King, Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, John Philip Sousa's El Capitan, and Warren Martin's The True Story of Cinderella.

The affairs of VLO are in the hands of a Board of Directors elected by the membership at the Annual Meeting. Officers of the Board for the year just concluded are Geert de Vries (President), Barbara Davis (Vice-President), Anne Westdyke (Clerk), Sudro Brown (Treasurer), James Walker (Asst. Treasurer), and Dick Stromgren (Past President). Members of the Board are John Foster, Glen Gordon, Kurtiss Gordon, Bob Graham, Peter Hirschman, Marese Dolan Hutchinson, Mzamo P. Mangaliso, and Judy Pistrang.

Donations to the Valley Light Opera are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

University Women is an organization, open to all women associated with the University of Massachusetts, which "promotes friendship among its members and renders service as deemed advisable" to the University community. Thus, members participate in Round the World Women, assist with Red Cross blood drives, and docent in the art galleries.

Perhaps most importantly, the group annually provides scholarships to two graduating seniors from the Amherst area who plan to attend UMass. Application forms are in the counselors' offices at the high schools, and all students are welcome to apply. The amount of the awards depends upon the fundraising efforts of University Women; in recent years, each student has received $1000. Your support is greatly appreciated.

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