As summer comes to a close, the Arizona Opera is gearing up for its upcoming season, with a handful of light-hearted performances scheduled.
In recent months, Arizona Opera has been finalizing contracts with talent from all over the country. In October, the singers will gather in Tucson to perform “H.M.S. Pinafore,” in which Grammy-nominated conductor Rob Fisher will make his Arizona Opera debut.
Marketing Manager Christine Slomski said she is confident this will be the best season yet.
“The performances this year are light, funny and fun,” Slomski said. “As a person in my 20s, I can absolutely relate to the content in these operas.”
Opera-goers will have the opportunity to see five operas in 2013-2014, with “H.M.S. Pinafore,” followed by “The Flying Dutchman,” “La Bohème,” “La Traviata,” and “Don Pasquale.”
UA students will have the opportunity to buy affordable tickets for the performances during “student rush,” which will make single $20 tickets available at the Tucson Music Hall box office two hours before every performance, Fisher said. Students can get the best seats remaining in the house, with a limit of two tickets per CatCard.
For Lori Fisher, Arizona Opera’s director of education, the most important part of each season is that the performances leave a lasting impression.
“At Arizona Opera, we try very hard to tell compelling stories that will be interesting for years to come,” Fisher said. “In particular, we are aiming to tell stories of importance to our audiences located in Arizona.”
The 2013-2014 performance series was built with newcomers to opera in mind. “H.M.S. Pinafore,” this season’s debut performance, is comedic and will be sung entirely in English. For operas in a foreign language, supertitles will accompany the show to display the English lyrics for the audience.
Arizona Opera works to recruit singers who are featured performers worldwide, which means that during the off-season, many leave the country and perform in Europe.
The production team at Arizona Opera is currently developing ideas, finalizing costuming and collaborating with the performers.
The stories being told at Arizona Opera this year will be familiar to most members of the public, said Fisher. Their plots may remind the audience of popular movies such as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, “Pretty Woman” and “Moulin Rouge,” as well as the beloved television show “I Love Lucy.”
The performances scheduled for this season are perfect examples of the Arizona Opera slogan, “Stories worth singing,” Fisher said.
“Opera is considered the highest art form,” Fisher said. “It is the ultimate team sport due to the way it combines orchestra music and beautiful singing to tell fantastic stories which can’t be told any other way.”
