2009-2008

News Release

REF NO.: 0

SUBJECT: Grenfell: Dr. Michael Parker returns for next Grenfell opera presentation

DATE: February 17, 2009

              The Grenfell Opera Series is pleased to welcome back Dr. Michael Parker, retired professor of classics at Grenfell College. He will be returning to Corner Brook to present and comment on the following ballet and opera:

1. Le Jeune Homme et La Mort (The Young Man and Death) by Roland Petit

2. Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell

              This double-bill of a twentieth-century ballet and a seventeenth-century opera are linked by their similar plots and by the music of two incredible baroque composers (Johann Sebastian Bach and Henry Purcell). In Roland Petit's ballet, a young man awaits a woman who does not love him. She finally arrives and teases him before urging him to commit suicide. In Purcell's brilliant opera based on the the Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil, Dido falls in love with the Trojan hero Aeneas. However, his destiny to found the Roman race forces him to leave her. In despair she commits suicide. Although the plots are dark, the music and the performances are extraordinary and will provide a wonderful cathartic effect in the middle of a winter's night.

                               Thursday, Feb. 26, 7 p.m. 
                                FC2014 Forestry Building
                                All are welcome and admission is free.
                                Refreshments will be served.

             Out of respect for those with allergies, please do not wear scents.

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