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Friday, August 10, 2001
Pop! goes the opera
Symphony taps Broadway with courageous audience sing-alongs, familiar tunes
By Dan Parker
Caller-Times

Opera Pops features four soloists: Nancy Cooke (from left), a Corpus Christi soprano; Frances McCafferty, a mezzo-soprano from Scotland; David Fieldsend, a tenor from England; and Daniel Washington, a baritone from Michigan.
Illustration by Kimiko Fieg/Caller-Times

A few weeks after Nancy Cooke performed last year at the Opera Pops,she was recognized at a Corpus Christi restaurant by a man who was not an opera fan. He approached her.
   "I have to tell you," the man said. "My wife dragged me to that show. I thought I'd sleep through it, but the opposite happened: I laughed, and I cried, and I sang along!"
   That was just the reaction Cooke and the rest of the performers had hoped for. "It comes down to wonderful music," said Cooke. "That's what we wanted to share with people. I think it worked wonderfully last year, and we're just hoping this year's event will work equally well."
   Organizers of Opera Pops II - to be performed at 8 p.m. Saturday at Selena Auditorium - have selected some of the finest and most recognizable opera arias and Broadway numbers and put them all together for one show. Even people who are not fans of opera and Broadway will likely recognize tunes at the show because popular culture has incorporated some the songs by way of television advertisements and cartoons.
   Broadway songs will include "I Can't Say No," from "Oklahoma!" and "Some Enchanted Evening," from "South Pacific." And there will be arias from the operas "Carmen," "Don Giovanni" and others.
   The show features four soloists: Cooke, a Corpus Christi soprano; Frances McCafferty, a mezzo-soprano from Scotland; David Fieldsend, a tenor from England; and Daniel Washington, a baritone from Michigan.
   The soloists will be accompanied by the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra and a 50-member chorus made up of members of the Corpus Christi Chorale and Corpus Christi Cathedral Chorale and local high school students who are part of the Texas All-State Choir. Lee Gwozdz, executive director of the symphony, will conduct the audience in a sing-along.
   "They'll have the words printed in the program," Gwozdz said. "I'm going to have a wireless mic, and I'm going to go through the audience, and if I hear someone good, I'll mike them. It'll be fun."


Contact Dan Parker at 886-3753 or parkerd@caller.com

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