By Olivia Kleinau
This Friday, Sept. 29, Lyric Theater will host its second performance of “La Serva Padrona” at 7:30 p.m. in the CFA Recital Hall.
On Sept 30th there will be a showing at the David A. Howe Memorial Library in Wellsville, N.Y. at 7 p.m. With another performance at 2 p.m. on Oct. 1, in the Palmer Opera House in Cuba, N.Y.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “La serva padrona” is written in Italian and will be performed in Italian by the Lyric Theater.
“We’re going to have supertitles so you will be able to see the translation above them the whole time so you’ll have an idea of what’s going on,” explained Professor Amanda Cox, director of the opera.
“La serva padrona” has a limited cast of only three actors, with one of them being a silent role.
“We actually cast it in the spring, we had them audition in late April,” Professor Cox adds. “They got their music at the beginning of the summer. It’s really hard to memorize a foreign language especially when there’s two of you and all of this music.”
Jonathan Hutmire (‘24) is cast as the bachelor Uberto, with Peter Meyer-Pflug (‘24) as the servant Vespone, and Evelyn Simanowski (‘25) as the maidservant Serpina.
Despite not knowing Italian beforehand, Simanowski was required to learn proper pronunciation as a vocal major. She practiced all summer in order to prepare for her role and make it sound as fluent as possible.
“Attendees can definitely look forward to the comedy aspect,” Simanowski says. “I think all too often Opera is so serious and taken far too seriously. It’s good even if this is your first opera to interact with it and know you can laugh and it can be funny, I think that’s most what I’m looking forward to.”★
