The Texas Tech University Opera Theatre is producing two one-act operas that are in production this week. Gregory Brookes and Blake Richardson visit with The Front Row to share more information on the event.
Greg Brooks, tell us about why you chose the pieces you’re performing.
This opera has a small cast and the cast gets to sing substantially throughout the opera. We wanted an opera that was able to showcase some of our graduate students. The opera also contains some extraordinarily beautiful music. It’s a very powerful story. All of those things—it’s a great drama, great music, and good roles for our students—were the primary reasons that we chose that…
Tell us about the medium
The Medium, Baba, is a woman and is most definitely an alcoholic, holds seances as a way of making a living. So she’s a con artist very much. She sets up these seances and has rigging and lights and microphones to make the guests believe that they’re talking to their departed loved ones.
But the opera quickly takes a dark turn. She’s very abusive, physically abusive. Toby is one of the other characters, and he’s actually a mute, so he doesn’t say or sing anything through the entire opera. But she’s especially abusive to him. It’s a very dark story.
Listen to the full interview at the top of the article.
