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AMHERST, Mass.—Amherst College students in a class called “Making Opera,” will do just that when they stage Mozart’s “La Finta Giardiniera” with a cast of professional singers on Saturday, Dec. 2, at 8 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall at Amherst College. The performance, in Italian with English supertitles, is free and open to the public; early arrival is recommended.
Last year Jenny Kallick, professor of music at Amherst, and her Music 20 students produced Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” to great acclaim. Now she and Jeffrey Lentz, an internationally acclaimed tenor who performed in Amherst’s “Cosi,” are directing a reworked version of Mozart’s 1775 “La Finta Giardiniera,” his first “dramma giocoso,” the genre of his “Don Giovanni.”
Lost and only rediscovered 20 years ago (which may explain its low profile among lovers of Mozart and opera), “La Finta Giardiniera” is a musical fantasy set in a garden of love, deception, and madness.
The Amherst College Orchestra, conducted by Lanfranco Marcelletti, will provide the music. The cast will include Christina Bouras, who just made her debut at the New York City Opera, and a group of singers from the Glimmerglass Opera Young American Artists Program, including Sandra Piques Eddy, Kathleen Magee, Kara Shay Thompson, Steven Humes, Harold Meers, and Scott Ramsay.
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