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Everything But the Sorbet
January/February 2007
photograph ©Mark Ostow
The Opera Theatre of Yale College
got its licks in with a December production of Street Scene. The 1947 "American opera," based
on a realist drama by Elmer Rice, with lyrics by Langston Hughes and music by
Kurt Weill, was a gritty change of pace from the Mozart comedies and Donizetti
romances the eight-year-old company has done in recent years. In Act One's
well-known "Ice Cream Sextet" (seen here in dress rehearsal), a New York
neighborhood savors the American dream. But the piece isn't all peachy and
creamy. Managing director Claudia Rosenthal '08 says, "I pushed to do Street
Scene because, at
least since I've been here, we've been presenting happy operas. We hadn't done
a full opera that was riveting, or dramatic, or tragic." Up next: a
mid-February run of the baked-child affair Hansel and Gretel, which the troupe hopes to tour to
local elementary schools.
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