Things we Learned at Inside the Opera Studio - Abduction from the Seraglio Edition

1. Man, this is one good looking cast!
2. Chris Devlin (Assistant conductor and moderator for the evening) believes that Mozart had it out for the singers as shown by the difficulty of this piece.
3. Matthew Garrett (Belmonte) has a pet peeve about operatic stereotypes – especially the one about strange facial hair.
4. Heather Buck (Constanza) would sing upside down if a director asked her to and it didn’t compromise the aria.
5. Ellen Douglas Schlaffer (Director) has directed so many Connecticut Opera performances over the years she is going to apply for honorary Hartford citizenship.
6. Ashley Howard Wilkinson (Osmin) believes in physical fitness (which may be the understatement of the year – come to see the show and you’ll see why).
7. Sarah Callinan (Blonda) will have no trouble doing a 2:00pm matinee. In fact, if it were at 10:00am it would still be two hours later than many of the performances she had to do as a Resident Artist with Connecticut Opera.
8. Maestro Waters is using his Abduction conducting, both here and when he was in Boston last month, as aerobic training for the marathon Porgy & Bess run that he will be conducting in Berlin this summer.
9. Michael-Paul Krubitzer (Pedrillo) will have to remember to sing the correct words for Abduction since the children’s opera, The Billy Goats Gruff, which he sang as part of Connecticut Opera’s education and outreach program, is based on Mozart’s music.
10. Christopher Dickerson (Pasha Selim) loves coming to Hartford. Since this is a speaking part he gets to play golf and go to the pub without feeling guilty.
11. Did I mention that this is one good looking cast!