The Opera will close its 77th season with the world’s most famous operatic comedy.
Now in its 77th season, the Mississippi Opera continues to roll this Spring, bringing music to life as it presents Voices of Freedom, Future Stars of the Stage, La Divina: A Maria Callas Centennial Celebration and the world’s most famous operatic comedy, Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus in Jackson.
Starring John Christopher Adams, Jason Abrams, Ramelle Brooks, Tiffany Williams-Cole, and Temperance Jones, with Tyler Kemp on piano, the opera’s presentation of Voices of Freedom: A Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration on January 16th explores the Civil Rights Movement through stories, spoken word, and song for the purpose of understanding, uplifting, and unifying. Voices of Freedom will be presented at Dulling Hall and begins at 7pm.
The Future Stars of the Stage concert features the finalists of the John Alexander National Vocal Competition on February 13th also at Dulling Hall. The singers were selected from hundreds of applicants from all over America. Both the John Alexander National Vocal Competition and the Future Stars of the Stage concert are sponsored by the Robert M. Hearin Foundation. The show beings at 7pm.
Maryann Kyle, soprano, and Michael Bunchman, piano, will be featured in La Divina: A Maria Callas Centennial Celebration on March 6th at Dulling Hall at 7pm. The event highlights the music and celebrates the life of Maria Callas who grew to become one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Born in Manhattan in 1923 to Greek immigrant parents, she was known for her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice, and dramatic interpretations. Her repertoire included the operas of Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, and more. Her personal life was as full of drama as the operas in which she sang. She was known simply as La Divina (the Divine one).
The Mississippi Opera will conclude its season with Die Fledermaus (or The Bat) on April 22nd at 7:30pm at Thalia Mara Hall. Die Fledermaus gets its title from a humiliatingly drunken incident involving Dr. Falke, one of the characters whose friends now laughingly refer to him as “The Bat.” This musical comedy involves disguises, seduction, revenge and more.
The Mississippi Opera Association was founded in 1945 and is a founding member of the national Opera America organization. It is the ninth oldest continuously operating opera company in the United States and Mississippi’s only professional opera company. The opera is funded through donations and patrons, as well as in part through Visit Mississippi, the Mississippi Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
To find out more about the Mississippi Opera and to purchase tickets, visit here.
Frank Corder
