Celebrate "La Vie Bohème" with the famous Cafe Momus scene from "La Bohème" (sung in English) and a concert medley from "Rent, the Musical" by Jonathan Larson, arranged by Mac Huff. Featuring UTD voice students and the UTD Chamber Singers. Directed by Kathryn Evans, with stage direction by Mary Medrick.

Featuring:
Mimi - Evana Chen
Rodolfo - Mariusz Galczynski
Schaunard - Dane Acree
Colline - Nimesh Parikh
Marcello - Casey Bennett
Alcindoro - M. Blue Livesay
Musetta will be performed by special guest artist Jacquelyn Lengfelder.

Director’s notes….
After his very successful opera Manon Lescaut in 1893, Puccini sat down to write his next work and was immediately drawn to a play by Henri Munger, Scènes de la vie de Bohème (also known as Bohemians of the Latin Quarter). The word “bohemian” was used in 19th century France to describe artists, writers, and disenchanted people of all sorts who wished to live non-traditional lifestyles. Puccini was drawn to this story of four young bohemians, Rudolfo the poet, Marcello the artist, Schaunard the musician, and Colline the philosopher, as the perfect depiction of this lifestyle, and the two women in their lives, Mimi and Musetta. As the curtain rises on Act I, we see them burning their furniture, even Rudolfo’s manuscript, in an attempt to keep warm. Presently we meet Mimi, the delicate young seamstress who lives upstairs. After a touching meeting and the kindling of a love affair, we move on to Act II, in the Latin Quarter of 1820s’s Paris and the neighborhood of the Café Momus. (It is this scene we will present this evening.) After our bohemians sit down to a light supper, we meet the flirtatious Musetta (former lover of Marcello) and her bumbling admirer, Alcindoro. After an elaborate ruse, Musetta and Marcello are reunited and the bohemians leave together – making sure to stick Alcindoro with the bill!

La Bohème was immediately successful when it was produced in Turin, Italy in 1896. Later that year Puccini triumphed with new productions in Palermo and Buenos Aires. Within two years La Bohème was acclaimed in Alexandria, Moscow, Lisbon, Manchester (in English), Berlin (in German), Rio de Janeiro, at Covent Garden in London (in English), Vienna (in German), Los Angeles and The Hague - all in 1897, and in Prague, Barcelona, Athens, New York and Paris as well as many other cities the following year. As one of the “top ten” opera hits and a sure-fire audience favorite, La Bohème is hardly ever absent from most opera houses' repertory for more than a season. Tonight’s performance of Act II features a new English translation by Kathryn Evans.

Fast forward to 1993 and New York City. A young composer, Jonathan Larson, is looking for material for a new musical. (It is interesting to note that an earlier work Tick, Tick... BOOM! concerned a starving artist, Jon, in New York City, who is worried he has made the wrong career choice to be part of the performing arts. Larson’s father later stated that this work was indeed autobiographical.) In the great tradition of “West Side Story” by Leonard Bernstein (which is based on Romeo and Juliet), Larson decides to draw on a well-known work: La Bohème. Updating the story to New York City, the musical features a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive under the shadow of AIDS. (In the opera, the disease was tuberculosis). Rent started as a staged reading in 1993 at the New York Theatre Workshop, followed by a studio production that played a three-week run a year later. The version now known worldwide opened Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on January 26, 1996 and opened on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996. Mr. Larson died unexpectedly of an undiagnosed aortic aneurysmon January 25th, 1996, just ten days before his 36th birthday, and only hours before Rent premiered Off-Broadway. Such is the stuff legends are made of.

Rent the Musical went on to win the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; four 1996 Tony Awards (including Best Musical and two to Mr. Larson-Best Book of a Musical and Best Score of a Musical); six Drama Desk Awards (including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Music and Best Lyrics); Best Musical Awards from the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Outer Critics Circle (Off-Broadway); and three Obie Awards (including Outstanding Book, Music and Lyrics). Soon the subject of a bitter legal case brought by Lynn Thompson, a dramaturg hired to work on the musical while it was in production at the New York Theatre Workshop, Rent the Musical stayed out of the mainstream until the settlement with the Larson Estate in 1998. Tonight’s concert performance features some of the best-loved and well-known songs from the show.

At the time, Rent was rare among Broadway musicals in that it featured some of the first clearly gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender characters on stage. Its success opened the door on Broadway to deal with such issues as multiculturalism, addiction, sexual orientation and HIV. Rent also encouraged future adaptions of well-known operas to musical theatre (such Verdi’s Aida, adapted by Elton John and Tim Rice in 2000). Like George Gershwin (who also died young, at the age of 38, two years after writing another landmark work, Porgy and Bess), we will never know how Jonathan Larson may have influenced American music and theatre had he lived to create other works. Soon to open as a major motion picture with the original Broadway cast, Rent holds a singular place in the history of American musical theatre.

About the performers….

Kathryn Evans joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Dallas in 1994. She was Arts Coordinator for the School of Arts and Humanities from 1995 to 1998, and Assistant Dean from 1998 to 1999. Currently, she serves as the Associate Dean for the Arts in the School of Arts and Humanities, teaches vocal and choral music, and directs the UTD Chamber Singers. She is an accomplished recitalist and chamber musician; performing in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and in Europe. Before coming to UTD, she was the Director of the Bach Society Chamber Orchestra and Chorus in La Jolla, California and the Musical Director of the Orpheus Ensemble. She founded and directed the Washington Pro Musica and the Early Music Ensemble of San Diego. She has directed European concert tours of Switzerland, Germany, France and Italy. Ms. Evans holds Master of Arts degrees in Music and in Mathematics from the University of California at San Diego. Ms. Evans has completed tours of music for voice and guitar with fellow faculty member Dr. Enric Madriguera in Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Mexico. Ms. Evans released the CD "Voz y Guitarra" with Dr. Madriguera in October of 2003. In April, the pair returned to Austria to judge the Rust International Guitar Competition and perform selections from their CD.

Mary Medrick is a writer/arranger who is active as a musical director, keyboardist and vocal coach. Along with graduate study in music at UNT, Medrick holds an M.A. in Arts & Humanities from UTD. As a keyboardist, she has toured 17 countries and has performed under the direction of such conductors as Johnny Green, Christopher Wilkins (San Antonio Symphony), David Stahl (Charleston Symphony) and Graeme Jenkins (Dallas Opera). Along with studio recording, Medrick arranges commercial music, including jazz vocal arrangements, which have been performed by the UTD Chamber Singers. She directed UTD’s 2002 production of the musical Personals. Her original libretto for the opera The Old Majestic, a collaboration with UTD faculty composer Dr. Robert Xavier Rodriguez, was showcased in 2003 by the New York City Opera and will be performed in April 2004 by the opera department of UT Austin. As a composer, Medrick has written two Broadway-style shows based on the Frankenstein legend and, in 2003, was commissioned to write High Popalorum, a musical about Louisiana politicians. Ms. Medrick is Undergraduate Advisor for Arts & Humanities and teaches piano and art courses at UTD.

Jacquelyn Lengfelder, soprano, has appeared with the Fort Worth Opera Studio as Pamina in The Magic Flute and Gretel in Hansel and Gretel. Her leading roles with the Ohio Light Opera as Risa in Autumn Maneuvers and Juliska in Sari by Kalman, can be heard on CDs produced by Albany Records. The live recordings of these operettas are frequently broadcast on WKSU FM throughout Northeastern Ohio. She has performed with the Graz Festival Orchestra singing highlights from Les Contes d’Hoffman. Her performance with the Plano Symphony Orchestra, which “illuminated the stage”, was broadcast on WRR FM in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex on Christmas Day, 2002. Jacquelyn recently spent six weeks in Europe where she coached with Italian countertenor Angelo Smimmo, and surveyed the life of librettist Rudolph Bernauer of the operetta The Chocolate Soldier, through interviews with his grandson now living in Dublin. A compelling and striking actress, she has often performed with orchestras and in musical theatre with the Dallas Theatre League honoring her with the nomination for Best Actress in a Musical Theatre Production. Jacquelyn’s roles include Sarah (Guys and Dolls), Fiona (Brigadoon), Mrs. Nordstram (A Little Night Music), and Marian (Music Man). Special distinctions include being named a semi-finalist in the Austrian Meistersinger competition in 2000, and winner of the concerto competition at Northern Illinois University. Jacquelyn and her husband Bill have co-written a musical play about the life of composer Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel which will have its first reading at Echo Theatre in Dallas in March 2006. Jacquelyn is also premiering in the first concert given by Classical Singers Collective in Dallas this fall at City Hall. Following a Bachelor of Music cum laude from Lindenwood University in Missouri, Jacquelyn is slated to receive her Masters of Music in Vocal Performance in December 2006 from Northern Illinois University. Jacquelyn has recently come under the guidance and assistance of Mary Ella Collins and Associates Artist Management as Roster Affiliate.

About the UTD Chamber Singers…

The UTD Chamber Singers was formed in 1994 as a performing ensemble of 20-24 singers. The repertoire for the ensemble is selected from a broad range of chamber vocal literature, including both sacred and secular music spanning the Renaissance to the contemporary periods of music history and modern jazz arrangements. The ensemble performs regularly on campus, including performances at the Renaissance Faire, the Annual Holiday Sing during the Fall Semester, and in concert as a Jazz Singers Ensemble in the Spring Semester. The UTD Chamber Singers collaborates with many other ensembles on campus, including the Jazz Ensemble, Guitar Ensemble and Dance Ensemble. They also perform on the Winter and Spring Arts Festivals every semester. In the Spring, the Chamber Singers join the UTD Chorale for a choral concert of large works with orchestra.

Past concerts have included “A Tribute to the Manhattan Transfer,” “All Mozart Concert,” “Swing Thing,” “Birds, Beasts and Bugs,” “A Victorian Christmas” and “A Celebration of Monteverdi.”
Students must audition and be accepted in order to enroll in Chamber Singers. Auditions are arranged in the Spring for new students and before every long semester during the registration periods.