Lauren Trimm

Reporter

The MUW Department of Music presented an opera and musical theater workshop on April 19 at 7:30 p.m.

The workshop featured performances by the voice students of Dr. Cherry Dunn and Elizabeth Jones. Performances included excerpts from various musicals, including songs from “The Sound of Music,” “Carousel,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Baker Street” and “Ragtime.” Arias from “Parade ed Elena,” “L’italiana in Algeri” and “Trouble in Tahiti” were also performed.

Students have been practicing and researching their pieces since January.

“I found the actual opera, ‘Trouble in Tahiti,’ online and tried to get like a feel for it and just, you know, continually practicing in the practice room to understand my piece,” said Cassie Simer, a mezzo-soprano.

Simer portrayed Dinah, a troubled woman whose bad dreams represent her marriage struggle.

Other students performed duets. Keith Patrick and Bailey Pounders captured the banter of two lovers in “People Will Say We’re in Love” from “Oklahoma.” In “Stepsisters’ Lament” from “Cinderella,” Bailey Pounders and Chellsa Moody portrayed the stepsisters’ disgust towards Cinderella. “Duetto buffo di due gatti” was performed by Richelle Lenoir and Christa Ferguson. The performance is known for only using the word, “meow.”

“It’s basically two cats and they are fighting. One is the melodramatic type character and the other is like very dramatic, and so they’re trying to see who’s gonna meow louder and harder,” said Lenoir, a mezzo-soprano.

Ross listed “Neverland” from “Peter Pan” as her favorite part of the performance. She loved this piece because she got to sing it with Hannah Roye.

“Me and Hannah have been doing duets for the past year, and our voices work really good together,” said Ross, a mezzo-soprano. “And it’s her last year here, so it’s really nice to go out with a bang doing duets.”

More information on the music department, including dates for future events, can be found online at www.muw.edu/as/music.