Fear No Opera is coming to the University of Victoria’s Phillip Young Recital Hall to present an evening of love and a little larceny, devotion and a dash of addiction.
The Dec. 5 performance takes on a pair of comic one-act operas composed by Gian Carlo Menotti. The Telephone is a 20-minute opera written in 1946, but its depiction of phone addiction is a topical and very funny commentary on today’s phone-driven behaviours. In The Old Maid and the Thief, high morals and loneliness duke it out in the heart of an old maid.
“Menotti is one of the few modern North American composers whose operas have remained popular,” said Neil Reimer, co-artistic director with Fear No Opera.
“There’s a simple reason for this: the music is melodic and accessible, and he had a genuine flair for story-telling. The Old Maid and the Thief was Menotti’s first big hit and includes the gorgeous aria Steal Me, Sweet Thief, while The Telephone is a hilarious ‘threesome’ involving two people and the woman’s phone.”
Fear No Opera will be at the Phillip Young Recital Hall Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $30, $20 for seniors and $10 for students, and are available at Ivy’s Bookshop, Munro’s Books, at the door, and online at fearnoopera.brownpapertickets.com.