Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's best-loved operatic compositions have been ringing through the halls of Sacramento State's music department lately as opera students prepare for tomorrow night's Mozart! Mozart! concert.
The performance is scheduled for Tuesday, November 24th at 7:30 p.m. in the campus' Capistrano Concert Hall.
The performance will feature arias, duets, trios and entire scenes from some of Mozart's most popular works, including: Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro.
The operatic sampler will be performed by 17 singers and two pianists.
We talked with two of the singers, Jordan Krack and Elise Savoy, and Opera Theatre Program Director Omari Tau.
Jordan Krack: "The hardest part about opera, you have to juggle between staying present in the scene, keeping good vocal technique, and at the same time keeping the energy going. It's really difficult. Most people have never head of the songs that I'm talking about. Or I'll make jokes about musical composers or operas and no one really gets it. I love to talk about music with people, especially younger people who are just getting into it."
Elise Savoy: "I've just been connected to this music for a long time. My mom would make me listen to classical music. I really enjoy this and I've never really thought about it as something that's an old tradition. There are a lot of companies keeping it alive. The one show that I saw, they were doing Don Giovani by Mozart and they all wore contemporary clothing. I'm hoping to sing in the opera world."
Omari Tau: "Students often think that it's classical music so you have to stand and you can't move and it's very serious. In fact, that's just not true. This music requires a great deal of life. It requires vitality and energy and they've got all that. Mozart is really the perfect embodiment of classical music and his melodies are hummable and accessible. But there is this exquisite genius associated with the way in which he plays with those melodies. So in our rehearsal process it's not mearly 'I tell you to do that, you want to do this.' It's not that. Instead it's us discovering how do we come to terms with this music, how do we bring it to life? This map, we've got a treasure map. Now how do we get to the teasure? And that's fun. It's about that journey that we talke to get there."
