Florida’s innovative Sarasota Opera,
now celebrating its fifty-first season, has established itself
in recent years as one of our most imaginative and successful
regional companies. The 2008 season marked the Grand Re-Opening
of the Mediterranean Revival Opera House after a year’s
closure for a major $20 million renovation. The Opera House
is an intimate and charming venue listed in our National Historic
Registry as a Florida landmark, now equipped with the most
up-to-date technical facilities. For the past decade, our
repeat travelers have recognized the high quality of the Sarasota
Opera and continue to choose March as the ideal time for a
Florida escape from winter.
The
Sarasota Opera’s outstanding productions and unusual
repertory are due to the leadership of Artistic Director Victor
DeRenzi. Under Mr. DeRenzi’s long-term commitment, the
company’s 2010 season will encompass five major operas,
including one double-bill. In contrast to the offensive ‘Euro-trash’
that has infiltrated many of the world’s leading houses,
we can all be grateful that the Sarasota Opera’s traditional
stagings continue to honor the values envisioned by the composers.
This
year, the splendid choice of operas should prove irresistible.
Three great works from the giants of Italian opera will span
the 19th century. In order of chronology, Giuseppe Verdi’s
intriguing ‘early period’ Giovanna d’Arco
adds lyric invention to Friedrich Schiller’s historical
interpretation of Joan of Arc’s impact. Then the double-bill
of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s
I Pagliacci will ignite the stage with classic ‘verismo’
passion. This Italianate repertoire is ideally balanced with
a pair of
major German operas – Mozart’s peerless The Magic
Flute and Engelbert Humperdinck’s lushly orchestrated
Hansel and Gretel, an important precursor of Wagnerian romanticism.
There are very few companies in the U.S. where opera aficionados
can indulge in the luxury of four different performances of
such high quality on four successive days. The Sarasota Opera
continues to set an ambitious example during this era of economic
austerity by mounting realistic sets. All of the operas will
be enhanced by English surtitles.
Our
first daytime excursion this year will include the Ringling
Museum of Art and the Tibbals Center Circus Museum. A second
excursion will take us to the lush Marie Selbye Botanical
Gardens. The area’s combination of musical, artistic
and natural treasures truly offers the enticing winter break
that everyone is looking for. The glorious coastal sands of
Sarasota’s Key islands continue unbroken for several
miles and are justifiably ranked by National Geographic magazine
as one of the three finest beaches in the world, matched only
by Waikiki and the French Riviera.
IMPORTANT:
We urge you to make your air reservations AS EARLY AS
POSSIBLE to avoid inflated high season airfares.
