Opera Delaware gets Intimate!

OPERADELAWARE gets Intimate

OperaDelaware has added a Studio Series to its Spring schedule. The cabaret-style evening of opera entertainment will be presented in the intimate surroundings of Opera Studios overlooking the Christina River on Fri., March and Sat., March 19 at 7:30 pm, and on Sun., March 20 at 2 pm, at 4 South Poplar Street, Wilmington.
Leads from future and past productions of OperaDelaware will sing a combination of opera’s greatest hits along with a few interesting selections from operas never performed in their entirety in Wilmington. Guests can sit at V.I.P. tables or in general admission and enjoy a glass of wine or beer while listening to their favorite arias.
“Last year’s Studio Series was a tremendous hit,” says executive director Lee Kimball. “Folks can get their feet wet with opera without having to commit to an entire evening of one opera. We expect they’ll come back for more.”
Jeffrey Miller, OperaDelaware’s Music Director, will accompany the singers and provide commentary.
Soloists will include Susan Nelson and her sister Joanna Gates,who will perform the famous “sister” duet from Cosi Fan Tutte and “Sorgi, O Padre” from Bellini’s Bianca e Fernando; Jeff Chapman, the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro and Marcello in La Boheme; Elisa Matthews, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and Beth in Little Women and members of the Wilmington Childrens Chorus. Guest artists include countertenor Gus Mercante, Lynne Claire Morse and Melody Wilson.
Aisle Say heard Elisa Matthews perform in the musical “Jekyll & Hyde” at Media Theatre. I do not recall my exact quote about her voice, but do remember my very visceral reaction; identical to the swoon cascading over my body when Sarah Brightman first sang “Time To Say Goodbye” to Andrea Bocelli.
For tickets 1-800-37-GRAND

AISLE SAY “Scoop of the Month”

Aisle Say has shown a consistent pattern of scooping our esteemed daily newspaper through his years of bulldogged and unrelenting investigative reporting.
The corporate papers from “The Smartest Guys in the Room” are now ensconced and online at Hagley Museum and Library. A decade ago, the mixture of hubris, auditing corruption, disgraceful corporate governance and Olympian greed brought about the scandal we know as Enron.
Donated by a former board member of Enron, the papers arrived at the Museum in November, were scanned in and made keyword searchable. The minutes are a text for any school of business with a course on deception. Lynn Catanese, Hagley's curator of manuscripts and archives says, “these documents have historical significance to scholars and students”.
Enron was not the biggest bankruptcy in US history, but it destroyed countless lives, made smithereens of Arthur Anderson and engendered the Sarbanes-Oxley legislative reforms. The above titled documentary film was an award winner. I still recall seeing Chairman Ken Lay do his perp walk. President Jeffrey Skilling is still behind bars and in February of this year, his 20 year old son od'd. (Thanks for the legacy, Dad!)
Internal documents may not appear to be as compelling as a quote from Charlie Sheen, but they are 'Winning' in their own right and serve as criterion on how to avoid being the next Enron.
The Library also houses the business records of Avon, Sun Oil, Wawa, Strawbridge & Clothier and, of course, Du Pont Co.
www.hagley.org/library/enron