Northwestern to End 2007-08 Opera Season With 'The Elixir of Love'

EVANSTON, Ill. --- The Northwestern University School of Music's opera department will conclude its 2007-08 season this spring with two performances of Gaetano Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore" ("The Elixir of Love") on the Evanston campus.

"L'elisir d'amore" ("The Elixir of Love") will be performed in Italian with English supertitles. Public performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 23, and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 24, in Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St.

Donizetti, master of the graceful "bel canto" opera style, composed this comic opera in 1832. The story is set in an Italian village where the peasant farmer Nemorino pines for the beautiful, wealthy and indifferent Adina. When the loquacious quack Doctor Dulcamara arrives in town, Nemorino resolves to win Adina's love with the aid of the Doctor's so-called "love potion." Matters are complicated when the dashing Sergeant Belcore swoops in with similar designs on Adina, leaving fate in the hands of the love elixir's real (or imagined) potency.

The production will be co-directed by guest conductor Philip Kraus and Northwestern music faculty member Robert Hasty. Kraus, a Northwestern alumnus, is a prominent American operatic baritone and stage director. He is known for his more than 15 years of performances with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and for his co-founding of Light Opera Works, a professional not-for-profit music theater company in Evanston, in 1980. Hasty is associate director of orchestras at Northwestern's School of Music. Hasty studied conducting with Victor Yampolsky and is a prominent conductor, teacher, adjudicator, clinician and violinist.

Ticket prices are $18 for the general public; $15 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff; and $8 for students with a valid ID. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact the Pick-Staiger Ticket Office at (847) 467-4000 or visit www.pickstaiger.org.