Concert History
Upcoming Concert Information … To be determined...
Operetta Foundation has produced seven concerts to date, beginning in 2003. The goal of these concerts is to entertain audiences and bring beautiful, yet rarely performed and all-but-forgotten, music back to the stage.
Sunny Side Up!
Date: March 16 and 17, 2013
Place: Madrid Theatre, Canoga Park, CA
A musical revue featuring your favorite songs – and a few lesser-known gems – from the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals, from their beginnings in the late 1920s through the early 1960s. Thrill to the tunes of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, and others. The show features eight vocalists, a ten-piece orchestra, and a witty, sentimental storyline that will bring back memories of these tunes of a bygone era.
Music Director: Adam Aceto
Stage Director: Steven Daigle
Choreographer: Robert Petrarca
Producers: Michael and Nan Miller (Operetta Foundation) and
Shelli Miller (Golden Performing Arts Center)
Zip! Goes A Million
Date: March 12 and 13, 2011
Place: Madrid Theatre, Canoga Park, CA
Based on the same novel as the 1985 film Brewster's Millions, this romantic musical by the father of modern American musical theatre traces the joys, romance, and tribulations of Monty Brewster, who has inherited $1 million from his grandfather and begun to live the high life. A lawyer appears with news that Monty's uncle—who detested the grandfather—has just passed away and left his nephew $7 million, but under the condition that, within a year, Monty dispose of the original $1 million. He accepts the challenge—as time passes, his loyal friends question his sanity, and his fiancée walks out on him. Finally, the year is up…. Kern's sparkling musical score contains some of Broadway's favorite tunes, including "Look for the Silver Lining," "Whippoorwill," and "Bill," which was reused some years later in Show Boat.
Music: Jerome Kern
Lyrics: Buddy de Sylva
New Book: Mark D. Kaufmann
Orchestrations: Frank Sandler and Maurice de Packh
Based on the 1902 novel Brewster’s Millions by George Barr McCutcheon
Music Director: Adam Aceto
Stage Director: Steven Daigle
Assistant Stage Director: Dan Davis
Choreographer: Robert Petrarca
Producers: Michael and Nan Miller, Operetta Foundation
Shelli Miller, Golden Performing Arts Center
Wagner and Operetta: An Unlikely Pairing
Date: May 3, 2010, 7 – 9 P.M.
Place: Beverly Hills, Public Library, Auditorium
Friends of Operetta devoted this quarterly meeting to the influence of Wagner and his works on operetta, musical theater, film, and popular song. A lecture and live recital featured selections from stage works including, among others, Die lustigen Nibelungen (The Merry Nibelungs) by Oscar Straus, The Magic Knight by Victor Herbert, Passionément by André Messager, and Le Carnaval des Revues by Jacques Offenbach.
Soprano: Robin Farnsley
Baritone: Gregorio González
Pianist: Victoria Kirsch
Narrator: Michael Miller
Operetta International: Journey to The Center of The Mirth
Date: November 17 and 18, 2007
Place: Jan Popper Theater, UCLA
Our fifth annual fall concert featured operetta songs from the six international centers—Paris, Vienna, London, New York, Berlin, Budapest—as well as from Spain, Russia, Italy, Greece, and the Yiddish theatre world of New York's Second Avenue. The concert followed two married couples, the closest of friends for years, who shared both a love for travel and perhaps more than just friendship. On their journey they played out their romantic intrigues through music from some of the greatest operettas from distant shores. The show was sung in English translation with piano and instrumental accompaniment.
Music Director and Pianist: Victoria Kirsch
Stage Director, Concept and Script: Steven Daigle
Sopranos: Robin Farnsley and Julie Wright
Tenor: Joshua Kohl
Baritone: Peter Halverson
Violin: Anna Kostyuchek
Woodwinds: Cindy Bradley and Ross Craton
Percussion: Michael Deutsch
Orchestrations: Paul Taylor
Musical Programming: Michael Miller
Producers: Michael Miller and Nan Miller
What a Day! What a Year!! What a Life!!! A Broadway Musical Revue in Song
Date: March 18, 2007
Place: Madrid Theatre, Canoga Park
Operetta Foundation presented its first joint production with Golden Performing Arts Center: What a Day! What a Year!! What a Life!!! This musical revue uses celebrated Broadway classics by Gershwin, Rodgers, Porter, Kern, Coward, Berlin, and others to tell the story of a woman as she looks back on a life filled with joy, sorrow, adventure, family, and her never ending quest for the man of her dreams.
Soprano: Robin (De Leon) Farnsley
Music Director and Pianist: Victoria Kirsch
Director, Concept and Script: Steven Daigle
Musical Programming: Michael Miller
This show was reprised …
Date: September 19 and 20, and October 3 and 4
Place: The Whitefire Theatre, Sherman Oaks
Marinka
Date: November 18 and 19, 2006
Place: Moses E. Gindi Auditorium, the University of Judaism
Operetta Foundation's 2006 show was a semi-staged version of Emmerich Kálmán's 1945 Broadway romance musical Marinka. The show is based on one of history's most intriguing and tragic love stories; it is a retelling of the famous Mayerling incident, but with a happy ending replacing the infamous 1889 double suicide of Austrian Crown Prince Rudolph and his mistress, Maria Vetsera. The show begins as youngsters at a movie palace decide that the Mayerling story that they have just seen on screen is too tragic. Their bus driver, however, is the son of Rudolph's coachman and has his own take on the story. Marinka ran for five months on Broadway, but had not been performed anywhere for more than 60 years. This production featured the entire musical score, which glimmered with trademark Kálmán waltzes and csárdáses, as well as songs influenced by his time in America. The hit tunes include “Only one touch of Vienna,” “Sigh by night,” “The cab song,” and the show-stopping “When I auditioned for the harem of the shah.”
Music: Emmerich Kálmán
Lyrics: George Marion, Jr.
Book: George Marion, Jr. and Karl Farkas
Music Director: Adam Aceto
Stage Director and Script Adaptation: Steven Daigle
Producers: Michael Miller and Nan Miller
Pianists: Adam Aceto and Patrick Johnson
Robin De Leon (soprano): Baroness Marie Vetsera (Marinka)
Peter Halverson (baritone): Crown Prince Rudolph
Julie Wright (soprano): Countess Landowska
Peter Nathan Foltz (tenor): Bratfisch / Bradley
Zale Kessler: Emperor Franz Josef
Ina Woods (soprano): Nadine / Tilly / Waitress
Brian Tanner (tenor): Francis / Lieutenant Baltatzy / Officer 2 / Male Student 1
Jessie Wright Martin (mezzo-soprano): Countess von Diefendorfer / Madame Sacher
Patrick Howle (baritone): Count Lobkowitz / Hoyos / Officer 1 / Male Student 2
Operetta: Saucy, Sultry, and Sentimental : A Musical and Theatrical Tribute to Franz Lehár
Date: November 19 and 20, 2005
Place: Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, Hollywood
Our third presentation, Operetta: Saucy, Sultry, and Sentimental, A Musical and Theatrical Tribute to Franz Lehár was our contribution to the 100th birthday celebration of the composer’s Die lustige Witwe(The Merry Widow), which opened in Vienna, on December 30, 1905 and breathed new life into a musical form that the theatre world was already considering an out-of-date relic of the nineteenth century. Lehár’s forty operettas contain some of the most beautiful, memorable, and haunting melodies, and are imbued with a sensuality that betrays his debt to Puccini.
Music Director and Pianist: Victoria Kirsch
Stage Director, Concept, and Script: Steven Daigle
Sopranos: Robin De Leon, Erin Jackson, and Julie Wright
Mezzo-Soprano: Jessie Wright Martin
Tenor: Jason Bridges
Baritones: Peter Halverson and Patrick Howle
Producers: Michael D. Miller and Nan C. Miller
Delights of Early Broadway!
A Musical and Theatrical Tribute to Victor Herbert, Rudolf Friml, Jerome Kern, and Sigmund Romberg
Date: December 18 and 19, 2004
Place: Schoenberg Hall, UCLA
The second concert was titled Delights of Early Broadway! A Musical and Theatrical Tribute to Victor Herbert, Rudolf Friml, Jerome Kern, and Sigmund Romberg and featured five singers and a pianist. The concert celebrated the contributions of four theatrical giants who helped establish the American musical theatre tradition and paved the way for the likes of Richard Rodgers, Leonard Bernstein, and Lerner and Loewe. Featured were songs and medleys from both familiar shows and those that have fallen undeservedly into theatrical oblivion. The show was revived on July 29, 2005 as a gala evening presented by The Ohio Light Opera.
Music Director and Pianist: Victoria Kirsch
Stage Director, Concept, and Script: Steven Daigle
Sopranos: Robin De Leon, Erin Jackson, and Julie Wright
Tenor: Joshua Kohl
Baritone: Peter Halverson
Producer: Michael D. Miller
Assistant Producer: Nan C. Miller
Play Gypsies! Dance Gypsies!
A Musical Tribute to Emmerich Kálmán
Date: December 13 and 14, 2003
Place: Schoenberg Hall, UCLA
The first Operetta Foundation concert was Play Gypsies! Dance Gypsies! A Musical Tribute to Emmerich Kálmán. Since his death more than 70 years ago, Emmerich Kálmán still reigns supreme, with Johann Strauss and Franz Lehár, as the preeminent composer of Viennese operetta − but operetta with a distinct and irresistible blend of waltzes, jazz, and the gypsy and csárdás rhythms of his native Hungary. The show offered songs and scenes, presented in a salon setting, from every one of the composer’s operettas. It featured four operatically trained singers, an actor portraying Kálmán, and piano accompaniment. The show was revived the following summer (July 30, 2004) by the Ohio Light Opera as part of its 25th anniversary gala season.
Music Director and Pianist: Victoria Kirsch
Stage Director, Concept, and Script: Steven Daigle
Sopranos: Robin De Leon and Julie Wright
Tenor: Jonathan Mack
Bass-Baritone: Dean Elzinga
Guest Pianist: Alex Hassan
Narrator: Zale Kessler
Special Guest: Yvonne Kálmán
Producer: Michael D. Miller
Assistant Producer: Nan C. Miller