Photo by: Amanda Smith-Avery
Cascadia Concert Opera shares its passion in Springfield
Musicians want to keep singing and make opera accessible to all
BY BOB KEEFER
SPRINGFIELD — Live opera in Springfield: Those four words capture the unexpected quality of a little-publicized performance at the Wildish Community Theater on Sunday
afternoon in which the audience outnumbered the performers, barely.
The concert rendition of German composer Otto Nicolai’s opera “The Merry Wives of Windsor” marked the fifth performance this season for Cascadia Concert Opera, a group of singers dedicated to the idea that opera is too good to be bottled up in traditional performance halls.
And so Cascadia has been presenting concert versions of real operas (“concert version” means no costumes, sets or staging) in such places as retirement homes and public libraries.
The group most often performs for free, although Sunday’s performance cost $15 at the door — a deal for live opera of any kind. (It generally costs more than that to get into a movie theater for the Metropolitan Opera’s video-link performances.)
The low price comes down to supply and demand.
“Eugene is unique,” board member Sandy Naishtat explained before the show. “We are in a market where we have a bunch of musicians who want to work — and not enough paid work for them to do…” Continue reading at theregisterguard.com