Lowell House Opera to Stage A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten: New England’s oldest opera company commemorates 75th anniversary and composer’s centennial

Lowell House Opera’s spring 2013 production of Benjamin Britten’s kaleidoscopic masterpiece A Midsummer Night’s Dream will run March 27, 29, 30 and April 3, 5, 6 at Lowell House on the campus of Harvard University.Tickets (from $10 to $40) can be purchased through the Harvard Box Office. Lowell House will host its annual opening night black tie gala, followed by a post-performance reception in the Masters’ Residence.

A team of professional directors and designers joins a cast of over forty students, community members, and rising opera stars from throughout the Boston region. The opera will be music directed by Lidiya Yankovskaya, stage directed by Roxanna Myhrum, and will feature up-and-coming singers Aliana de la Guardia (founding member of Guerilla Opera in Boston) and Douglas Dodson (2010 finalist in the Met Opera’s National Council Auditions), among others. Yankovskaya is Music Director of the Juventas New Music Ensemble (currently ensemble-in-residence at Boston Conservatory), Music Director of the Center for Contemporary Opera’s Development Series in New York City, Associate Conductor of the Boston Opera Collaborative, and Affiliate Scholar at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Myhrum is Artistic Director of the Puppet Showplace Theatre, Artistic Associate of the Boston Opera Collaborative, a Harvard alumna, and a director of opera, theater, and puppetry throughout New England. Last year, Yankovskaya and Myhrum collaborated on Lowell House Opera’s sold-out production of Snegurochka (“The Snow Maiden”), the American Russian-language premiere of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s folk epic.

With this year’s production, Lowell House Opera joins the worldwide festivities celebrating the centennial year of Benjamin Britten, one of the most influential composers of the 20th century and greatest composers in British music history. A master of modern opera, Britten skillfully captures a magical world through colorful tone painting and his adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic text. This kaleidoscopic soundscape in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is made possible in part through an unusual orchestration, a treble chorus, the spritely spoken role of Puck, and the use of a countertenor for the role of Oberon, king of the fairies.

The company will also commemorate its seventy-fifth anniversary as the oldest continuously performing opera company in New England with several new campus-wide initiatives. The inaugural James Laurence Michel Memorial Lecture Series—co-sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center and Music Department at Harvard—will feature leading scholars and young academics. Harvard Professor of Music Carolyn Abbate, Matthews Distinguished University Professor Harlow Robinson of Northeastern University, and Harvard doctoral candidates Seth Herbst and Misha Teramura (English) will deliver the lectures to the production’s cast and production staff and Harvard students and faculty. The series is named in honor of the late Dr. James Michel, an active member of the Lowell House Senior Common Room and a passionate supporter of Lowell House Opera, in gratitude to donations made in his name.

Other initiatives include increased outreach to Lowell House Opera alumni carried out through social media and made visible through a new company logo, website, and brand.

About Lowell House Opera

Established in 1938, Lowell House Opera is the longest continually performing opera company in New England, featuring students and professionals from both Harvard and the greater Cambridge/Boston area. Each year, dozens of artists and student artists volunteer their time to stage a production with full orchestra, costumes, sets, and lighting in the Lowell House Dining Hall. The operas are often performed in their original language, with English supertitles projected in front of the stage. The hall functions as a more intimate performance venue particularly suited to lighter voices that enables audience members to experience opera up close. Lowell House Opera offers educational opportunities on many levels and is dedicated to developing professional skills on many fronts. Experienced directors and production staff direct workshops and individual coaching sessions to enhance performance skills. Singers are able to learn and perform their roles in the original language and to explore the literary basis and historical context for the work. For undergraduates in particular, the opera offers a unique opportunity to work with more experienced artists who have devoted their professional lives to opera and theater. Lowell House Opera is a community effort involving artists from Harvard University and beyond. It is seen by audience members from throughout the greater Boston area and over fifteen hundred people each season.

About Lowell House

Lowell House is one of the twelve undergraduate houses at Harvard University. It is an active community of more than five hundred people: four hundred undergraduate students, about twenty-five resident tutors and scholars drawn from Harvard’s graduate and professional schools, and over seventy-five affiliated faculty and visiting scholars.