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Sarasota Opera & Selby Public Library Celebrate Giuseppe Verdi.

During the month of October Sarasota Opera, known as Verdi’s American Home, will join in the worldwide celebration honoring the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of the famed Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi.  In partnership with Selby Public Library, Sarasota Opera has planned an innovative program of public talks and free concerts including a big birthday celebration on Thursday, October 10, the day of the composer’s birth.  These events will take place at both the Selby Public Library and the Sarasota Opera House.

Giuseppe Verdi’s 200th Birthday Celebration – Thursday, October 10, 2013

This will be a birthday celebration not to miss!  The celebration will begin at 4pm at the Selby Public Library (1331 First Street, Sarasota, FL 34236) with the unveiling of special exhibits and a performance by Sarasota Opera artists in the rotunda of the Library.  Immediately following, guests will be invited to follow the red carpet out the south entrance of the Library and walk across the street to the Sarasota Opera House to continue the celebration.

Beginning at 5pm, the party will continue offering guests a full access pass to the Sarasota Opera House.  The event will include backstage tours, performances by Sarasota Opera artists and Saraosta Youth Opera, meet and greets with Sarasota Opera’s production team, and special kids only activities.  Towards the end of the evening, guests will be invited into the William E. Schmidt Opera Theatre to join in a birthday tribute to Sarasota Opera’s favorite operatic composer, Giuseppe Verdi, with a community sing of his famous chorus Va, pensiero from his opera Nabucco.  Music, birthday cake, door prizes, refreshments, AND lots of fun!

From Page to Stage

A series of free public talks will be presented by Sarasota Opera staff members in honor of three important 2013 anniversaries:  the 200th birthdays of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, and the 100th birthday of Benjamin Britten.  These talks are presented in partnership with the Selby Public Library and will be held in the Geldbart Auditorium at the Library.

Wednesday, October 9  10:30am – Maestro Victor DeRenzi, Artistic Director of Sarasota Opera, will present a talk on Sarasota Opera’s Verdi Cycle which is due to complete in 2016.  Upon completion of The Verdi Cycle, Sarasota Opera will have the distinction of being the only opera company in the world to have performed every published note Verdi wrote.

Wednesday, October 16  10:30am – Maestro Victor DeRenzi will moderate a screening and discussion of the documentary Tosca’s Kiss.  Produced in 1984, Tosca’s Kiss profiles residents of the Casa Verdi, a retirement home for retired Italian opera singers in Milan established by Verdi in 1902.  Many of the residents had well established careers at opera houses around the world and spend their days at the Casa Verdi re-living and re-enacting the operatic roles that made them famous.  The recent movie Quartet was patterned after the Casa Verdi and its famous residents.  This is a FREE event.

Wednesday, October 23  10:30am – Executive Director Richard Russell will offer a talk on the operatic world of Richard Wagner focusing on Sarasota Opera’s 2014 winter production of his opera The Flying Dutchman

Wednesday, October 30  10:30am – Samuel Lowry, Director of Audience Development, and Maestro Jesse Martins, Sarasota Youth Opera Music Director, will offer a talk on the operatic world of composer Benjamin Britten.  This presentation will include musical excerpts from Britten’s children’s opera The Little Sweep which will be presented by the Sarasota Youth Opera on November 9th and 10th.