Friday, August 15, 2025

thrice to the wooded areas we go!

As I told Sherrill Milnes before the show tonight, this is the third time this year that I've been treated to this musical!
The first had been at the same venue as yesterday's SVF13 event, but only middle-school kids were involved.
The second time was at Tybee, less than a month ago.
Good thing I love "Into The Woods"!!!
Mind, I'm not saying that the musical in its entirety was reproduced this time, as that was certainly not the case.
Oh, far from that!
However, of the fourteen songs presented, five were from that one Stephen Sondheim creation.
Impressive!
The First Presbyterian Church was the host site for tonight's "Once Upon A Time: Fairy Tales Come Alive", with the front bedecked with flowers and greenery galore.
'Twas truly lovely!
I had not yet placed the purple cloth bands on the first five rows of pews for the premium patrons before that photo.
I ended up being the volunteer in charge, as Kim left about 20 minutes into our shift.
That was all fine, though, as everyone knew the drill by this time!
After all, there is just one more show before the grand finale party, so we've all become quite familiar with each other and the routine.
The big differences have been with the venue layout and the location of the bathrooms.
The show tonight also had children in attendance, though certainly not as many as there had been at the school venue last night.
How wonderful that there have been $15 tickets to encourage families to come!
Any who were there for the opera would have been treated again to two songs from "Cinderella", the classic they would have known well!
This arrangement was a bit different, though.
Peter Lake sang his part of "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful"...
then the two stepsisters stepped in with their Lament...
before Ashley Nunez sang her portion of the duet with Peter.
Very nice!
Later, there was a fabulous interaction between Eric Ĺ ebek and James Williams III when their songs as Shrek ("Who I'd Be") and the Shadow Man ("Friends On The Other Side") played off each other.
Of course I just ate all of that up!
I wonder how many of the folks there knew both of those musicals?
Not that I knew all of these fairy tales.
The lone numbers from "Falstaff" and "Rusalka" threw me, but I recognized those from "The Magic Flute" as well as "Hansel And Gretel". 
Nice to have some music I'd not heard! 
 
Thankfully, we were rain-free, too, except for a slight drizzle as folks were slowly heading out afterward to their cars.
That was good!
The last time Savannah VOICE had a festival event here had been in 2019 and there had been pouring rain before and after.
I'm so glad Joan Silver got me involved with ushering for opera!
These two weeks have been glorious!
I understand why John Suchower would go to Europe every summer to follow the trail of operas being performed.
He certainly wasn't going to get that here, back in the 80's and 90's.
Thank you, Sherrill and Maria, for bringing your dream to life in Savannah.

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