Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre presents “Operatini" -- February 11.
Thursday, February 11, 7 p.m.
Presented by Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre
A world-premiere presentation telling an all-too-current tale of Zoom-meeting anxieties, the three-song cycle Operatini serves as the fourth commission in the 23-year history of Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, its February 11 debut a virtual collaboration by composer Nancy Hill Cobb, librettist Melinda Boyd, and mezzo-soprano Suzanne Hendrix-Case.
Nancy Hill Cobb is currently Professor of Music at the University of Northern Iowa, and spent a number of years as a conductor and composer at Mercer University, Oklahoma Baptist University, Dallas Baptist University, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Indiana State University. She holds a DMA in composition from the University of Oklahoma, aa MM in composition from Michigan State University, and the BM in theory and composition from Oklahoma Baptist University. Cobb was given a Special Distinction Award for her 1998 entry into the American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publishers’ Rudolph Nissim Composition Contest for her choral/orchestral work Threnody, and her works are performed nationally and internationally, with recent performances held in Denmark, Japan, Germany, and New Zealand.
Melinda Boyd holds PhD and MA degrees in musicology from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor’s degree in music history from the University of Manitoba. As visiting faculty at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, Boyd taught a wide range of courses for graduate and undergraduate students, including historical survey classes, research and writing, genre classes, and music in culture topics. Her research focuses on women composers and performers of the 19th and 20th centuries, issues of gender and feminist theory, cultural studies, aesthetics, and popular music. Boyd has also presented her research at a number of national and international conferences including the Society for American Music, the Society for Music Theory, and the Canadian University Music Society, and along with Karin Pendle, she is co-author of Women in Music: A Research & Information Guide.
An alumna of the University of Northern Iowa, Suzanne Hendrix-Case earned both her Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music, and completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory. She also participated in the Merola Young Artist Program at San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera Young Artist Program, and Des Moines Metro Opera Apprentice Artist Program. Regional credits include roles with Hawaii Opera Theater, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Memphis, and Wichita Grand Opera, and Hendrix-Case has enjoyed leading roles in operas including Il Trovatore, Das Rheingold, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Wozzeck at Lyric Opera of Chicago; Madama Butterfly, Nabucco, and Elektra at Wiener Staatsoper; and Das Rheingold, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung at Seattle Opera.
Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre's world-premiere presentation of Operatini will be shown at 7 p.m. on February 11, and can be viewed through YouTube.com/cedarrapidsopera, after which it will be available at the opera company's Web site. The performance will be interspersed with area-restaurant mix-masters demonstrating their own takes on an “operatini,” and more information on the event is available by calling (319)365-7401 and visiting CROpera.org.
