In Sunday’s (9/21) Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), Peter Tonguette previews a collaborative program called Twisted, “pooling the resources of BalletMet, Opera Columbus and the Columbus Symphony and Chorus … [and employing] 30 dancers, seven opera singers and about 140 musicians and choral singers onstage at the Ohio Theatre. The program, set to open Thursday for a four-day run, will include excerpts from operatic staples such as Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Bizet’s Carmen—sung by Opera Columbus vocalists backed by the orchestra, with the visual interpretation created by four choreographers and performed by BalletMet dancers.… ‘While the past several years have seen an increasing number of collaborations between arts organizations, there has not yet been one involving three organizations and this many artists,’ said [Tom Katzenmeyer, president and CEO of the Greater Columbus Arts Council]…. Previous collaborations have paired the symphony with the ballet or the opera onstage, said conductor Peter Stafford Wilson, ‘but never all three components onstage sort of churning at the same time.’ The article notes that the idea for the collaboration started with a July 2013 meeting between Edwaard Liang, BalletMet’s artistic director; Bill Conner, president and CEO of the Columbia Association for the Performing Arts; and Peggy Dye, artistic director of Opera Columbus.”
Posted September 26, 2014
Pictured: Columbus Symphony and Chorus, with members of BalletMet and Opera Columbus, performing “Twisted” at the Ohio Theatre. Photo by Chris Russell / The Columbus Dispatch
