The startup concert for the Chilliwack Metropolitan Orchestra’s 2016/17 season will be spotlighting Canadian soprano Melanie Krueger in what they are fondly calling their Romantic Opera Sampler on Nov. 5.
Krueger has carefully chosen her pieces for this concert from different genres within her repertoire and ones which are beautifully suited to performance along with a full symphony orchestra. She is very pleased to be able to perform these pieces with an orchestra and always enjoys this opportunity, she says.
Her program will be moving along the timeline from Mozart to Bernstein with wonderful songs of longing and drama, Dvorak’s Song to the Moon, to songs of light-hearted fun such as Lehar’s Vilia.
The CMO will be adding a wonderful selection of overtures, intermezzos and preludes to the concert, all from well-loved operas written by Mozart, Verdi, Donezetti, Lehar, Leoncavallo, and Mascagni. To round out the evening, music from Massenet’s Le Cid will be the main feature after the intermission.
A favorite piece of CMO artistic director, Gregory Johnson, is the Overture from Verdi’s Nabucco with it’s forceful opening entrance of the horns. According to the string sections, the intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana is the most moving orchestral piece of the program.
Described by the magazine, La Scena Musicale, as having a “voice that soars over the orchestra” Krueger received her undergraduate degrees in music and education and then went on to the University of British Columbia for her Master’s in opera. She has been on stage with the Vancouver Opera and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and is known for her ”expressive, lyric tone and thrilling high notes.”
“Melanie impressed me as a warm, down-to-earth lady with a love of knitting, and a lovely sense of humour,” says Anne Fleming with the CMO. “She laughed when I told her that the concert is called Romantic Opera Sampler. She thought that brought to mind a lovely selection of food being presented on a platter with a little of this here, and a bit of fried zucchini there.”
Krueger, who was born in Prince George and raised in Abbotsford, is successfully performing on North American and European Opera stages. She plans to keep Vancouver as her home base and continue working with the Vancouver Opera and Symphony.
When she is not performing, Krueger is teaching music in Surrey.
The CMO’s Romantic Opera Sampler is the perfect opportunity for opera lovers to enjoy a varied selection of treasured opera tidbits, and for those not familiar with opera, it is an opportunity to have a small taste of an expansive repertoire.
The Romantic Opera Sampler is at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre Saturday, Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25/adult and $15/student and are available at the Centre Box Office, by calling 604-391-SHOW, or online at chilliwackculturalcentre.ca.
