Orchestra

Violin I
   Billy Kim
   Nathaniel Yoo
   Wan-nee Chen
   Bill Chan

Violin II
   Henry Tysler
   June Kim
   Philipe Olive
   Dan Liebgold

Viola
Megan Donahue
Chandar Wood

Cello
   Elizabeth Wright
   Dvora Vener

Bass
   Chris Williams

Oboe
Kim Brashear

Horn
Daniel Wood
Armando Castellano

UCLA School of the Arts and
UCLA Department of Music
present

UCLA Opera Workshop and
UCLA Chamber Orchestra

Two One-Act Operas
Sung in English

Boris Blacher’s
Romeo and Juliet

and

Joseph Haydn’s

The Apothecary

Edited by Dr. Robert Hirschfeld
Adaptation and English translation by Thomas Sherman

Friday and Saturday
February 26 and 27, 1993 at 8pm
Schoenberg Hall, UCLA

Welcome, dear ladies and gentlemen, to the UCLA Opera Workshop presentation of two chamber operas: Haydn’s sunny, silly farce of young love in a drug store, The Apothecary (1768) and a unique setting of Romeo and Juliet (1947) by the contemporary German composer Boris Blacher. With these two very different pieces of music theater we hope to give our student performers a chance to strengthen their performing skills with vastly differing musical and dramatic styles. These workshop productions also feature student designers from the UCLA Department of Theater Arts for the lights, sets, and costumes. The stage director for Romeo and Juliet is a second-year graduate student in that department, and the music director for Romeo and Juliet is a first-year graduate conducting students in the Music Department. So…as you can tell, a lot of learning has taken place in these first few weeks of 1993. We hope that it is as entertaining for you as it has been good work for us.

Cast

Mengone, an apprentice druggist
Kent Carlson

Sempronio, owner of the drugstore
Brian Leerhuber

Grilletta, his young ward
Rebecca Semrau

Volpino, a foreign exchange student
Miwa Kawaguchi

Turkish Emissaries
   Eric Jordan
   Chris Rhodes
   Eli Gunnell
   Bryan Chesters
   Robert Shacklett

The Apothecary

The story line of this little farce is straight out of 18th century opera buffa land. An eccentric apothecary, Sempronio, who avidly reads the daily papers in search of foreign adventures, is attracted to his ward, the lovely Grilletta. She is drawn to his apprentice, Mengone, but is frustrated by his reticent and bashful behavior toward her. The situation is further complicated by the affections of a young student type, Volpino, who is also madly infatuated with the beautiful Grilletta. Overhearing Sempronio’s plan to change his status with Grilletta from guardian to bridegroom, the two other suitors disguise themselves as notaries and perform a mock marriage ceremony hoping to substitute themselves as groom. Grilletta, aware of their scheming goes along with the gag, hoping to spur Mengone into action. When this scheme fails, Volpino (in another disguise) tricks the foolish Sempronio into realizing his dreams of becoming the personal physician to an Oriental pasha. When the ambassadors from the pasha arrive and begin to ransack the drugstore to move Sempronio lock, stock, and barrel to Turkey, he realizes that the game is up and relinquishes Grilletta to her true love, Mengone. This little opera has all of the required characteristics of the genre, tuneful arias, charming ensembles, silly twists of a stereotypic plot, and the use of “exotic Turkish” elements so beloved of the 18th century. In 1993, the opera seems to be a concoction of funny single movements, much like a comic strip in the Sunday papers, which is what this production is about. Its primary purpose is to amuse, both today and at its creation in Eszterháza over two hundred years ago. – John Hall

Production Credits

Conductor and Harpsichord
William Lumpkin

Stage Director/Designer
John Hall

Costumes
Alex Jaeger

The Apothecary is used by arrangement with European American Music Distributors Corporation, sole U.S. and Canadian agent for Universal Edition Vienna, publisher and copyright owner.