Soprano Renee Fleming to Launch Winter 2008 Voice/Opera Season

EVANSTON, Ill. --- The Northwestern University School of Music's Winter 2008 voice and opera season will begin with a master class led by world-renowned American soprano Renée Fleming. The season will continue with a performance by esteemed soprano and School of Music Artist in Residence Nancy Gustafson and conclude with Benjamin Britten's opera "A Midsummer Night's Dream," featuring a cast of students from Northwestern's Voice and Opera Program.

These public events will take place on the University's Evanston campus at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive, or Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., as noted below.

Two-time Grammy Award-winner Renée Fleming will coach pre-selected students of the School of Music's Voice and Opera Program at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15, in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall. Fleming's recent and upcoming engagements include "Eugene Onegin" with New York City's Metropolitan Opera, "La Traviata" with the Los Angeles Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, "Arabella" with the Zürich Opera and concert performances of Jules Massenet's "Thaïs" at several opera houses throughout Europe. Tickets are $7 for the general public; $5 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff; and $4 for full-time students with IDs.

Soprano Nancy Gustafson will sing with the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 2. Gustafson has performed and recorded with artists Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti and has sung leading roles at La Scala in Milan, the Bastille Opera in Paris, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Royal Opera House in London. During the Feb. 2 concert she will perform excerpts from Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen": "The Ride of the Valkyries" from "Die Walküre" and "Siegfried's Rhine Journey" from "Götterdämmerung." She also will perform works by Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg. Tickets are $12 for the general public; $9 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff; and $6 for full-time students with IDs.

The School of Music's Voice and Opera Program will present Northwestern's Winter 2008 opera, Benjamin Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The four performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, through Saturday, March 1, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 2, in Cahn Auditorium. Noel Koran will direct and Stephen Alltop will conduct Britten's 1959 operatic retelling of Shakespeare's classic tale of requited and unrequited love and the hilarity that ensues when the hobgoblin Puck meddles with the mortal and fairy worlds. The opera will be performed in English with English supertitles. Tickets are $18 for the general public; $15 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff; and $8 for full-time students with IDs.

For more information, call the Pick-Staiger Concert Office at (847) 491-5441 or visit the new Pick-Staiger Web site at <www.pickstaiger.org>. To order tickets by phone, call the Pick-Staiger Ticket Office at (847) 467-4000.