Skip to main content
  • Current Students
  • Parents & Families
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Staff

Footer quick links

  • Request Info
  • Plan a Visit
  • Apply Now
  • About
    • Calendar for Events
    • Campus Departments
    • Campus Map
    • Chapel
    • College Profile
    • Community Commitments
    • Consumer Information
    • History of Westmont
    • Institutes & Centers
    • Leadership
    • News
    • Our Commitment to Diversity
    • Ridley-Tree Museum of Art
    • Westmont Magazine
      • Request Info
      • Plan a Visit
      • Apply Now
    • Visit
  • Academics
    • Academic Services
    • Augustinian Scholars Program
    • Experience Opportunities
    • Global Education
    • Majors and Programs
    • Office of the Provost
    • Our Approach
    • Outcomes
    • Voskuyl Library
    • Consumer Information
      • Request Info
      • Plan a Visit
  • Admissions & Aid
    • Affording College
    • Apply to Westmont
    • Visit Westmont
    • Transfer Students
    • Returning Students
    • International Students
    • Our Commitment to Diversity
    • Admitted Students
    • Fall Orientation
    • Prospective Parents
    • Meet your Counselor
    • Confirm your Place
    • Words of Warriors
      • Request Info
      • Plan a Visit
      • Apply Now
    • 9th-11th Grade Students
    • Consumer Information
  • Student Life
    • Student Spotlights
    • Words of Warriors
    • CATlab
    • Living on Campus
    • On Campus Activities
    • Off Campus Activities
    • Our Commitment to Diversity
    • COVE Career Center
    • Ministries
    • Chapel
    • Consumer Information
      • Request Info
      • Plan a Visit
      • Apply Now
  • Giving
    • Why Give?
    • Where to Give
    • How to Give
    • Giving Societies
    • Contact Us
      • Give Today
  • Athletics
  • APPLY TODAY

Westmont Magazine

  • Magazine Home
    • Feature Stories
    • Westmont News
    • Alumni Stories
    • Faculty News
    • Past Issues

SPRING 2020

Westmont Magazine Music, Theater Double Our Opera Pleasure

Opera Marriage Contract

With great imagination and flair, Westmont’s music and theater arts departments presented two one-act Italian operas updated with contemporary sensibility. Audiences witnessed two wildly different comic stories and musical styles: Gioachino Rossini’s “The Marriage Contract” and Giaocomo Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi.”

John Blondell, professor of theater arts and stage director, and Michael Shasberger, Adams professor of music and worship who directed the play’s music, built off their recent successes with “The Pirates of Penzance,” “Dido and Aeneas,” “Die Fledermaus” and “The Magic Flute.” 

“Puccini wrote ‘Gianni Schicchi’ as part of a trilogy of stories that included a tragedy and a drama,” Shasberger says. “Our pairing put two of the most engaging comic, one-act operas together from two of the greatest operatic composers of all time, Rossini and Puccini. It’s fascinating how both composers deal with the challenges of true love and the tension between avarice and virtue. The operas are about 100 years apart in musical style, so it was exciting to hear the singers working in very different styles of storytelling.” 

 “As we dove into these shows, we asked questions of the material that I have been obsessed with for more than 30 years,” Blondell says. “What is theater? What is contemporary theater? What is a living theater? What do we do with old stories? Should we keep telling them? Why? How? Both these stories emerge from times very different from our own and mean different things today than they once did. In both cases, we pulled apart these operas and reimagined them for contemporary circumstances, questions and points of view. We crashed the worlds of the present into the worlds of the past. The stagings were meant to elicit responses, prompt questions and provide opportunities for conversation and debate. The theater—isn’t it great!”

Opera Marriage Contract

Footer links menu

  • Request Info
  • Plan a Visit
  • Apply Now

Footer Utility menu

  • Employment
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Emergency Info
  • Feedback
  • Consumer Information

955 La Paz Road
Santa Barbara, CA 93108 

805-565-6000

Contact Us

 

Social media menu

©2021
Westmont College - All rights reserved