LITTLE ROCK — Former Metropolitan Opera soprano Carol Vaness will open the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s 2011-12 Artspree season with a recital at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, Fine Arts Building, UALR, 2801 S. University Ave.
Vaness, professor of voice at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, is a San Diego native who started her career at the New York City Opera, where she appeared regularly from 1979 to 1983.
After performing at most of the world’s great opera houses, she sang the title role in Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca (one of her signature roles) at the Metropolitan Opera in 2004 opposite tenor Luciano Pavarotti in his final operatic performance. Joining Vaness for the recital arebaritone Christopher Grundy, a graduate student at Indiana University, where he is an associate instructor of voice and assistant director of the graduate opera workshop, and pianist Davis Hart.
Vaness and Hart will perform the recitative and aria Ah! perfido, op.65, by Ludwig van Beethoven; four Airs chantes by Francis Poulenc; and five lieder by Joseph Marx. Grundy will sing six Folksong Arrangements by Benjamin Britten and Funf Goethe Lieder by Ferruccio Busoni.
Together they will sing the final Act 3, Scene 2 duet from the opera Eugene Onegin by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky.
Tickets are $20 general admission, $10 for students, free for UALR students. Call (501) 569-8993 or visit ualr.edu/artspree.
Weekend, Pages 36 on 09/15/2011