Unscripted

The College of Charleston Opera has been in full swing this school year, and coming to an end this semester is its final production of the season on Fri. April 24 and on Sat. April 25 at 8 p.m.

A musical revue performed by CofC students (including both regular talents and new upperclassmen), Where Do We Fit In? full of showpieces from Broadway and the opera house. It includes scenes from Frank Loesser's Most Happy Fella and Kizmet, Sigmund Romberg's Student Prince, Kurt Weill's Street Scene, and Leonard Bernstein's Candide.

The performance concludes with scenes from Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music. The season-ending show takes place at the Recital Hall of the Simons Center for the Arts on 54 St. Philip St. Tickets are sold at the door for only $10 (general admission) and $5 (students and those 18 and under). Call (843) 953-8228 for more information. —Reina Gascon-Lopez

This is the first time it's done this kind of thing, but it might not be the last.

That is, if the funding can be worked out. And in this economy, that's a big if.

The Circular Congregational Church is about the stage Gian Carlo Menotti's one-act opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors on Dec. 14 at 5:30 p.m. The show is free and open to the public. Donations are accepted.

The Circular Church is known for being friendly to local artists. PURE Theatre uses its Lance Hall. The New Music Collective performs in the main hall, as do other music groups.

But this is the first time the church has attempted a production, and this is the first time it has raised money to make it happen.

"The church doesn't have much," says Marilyn Taylor, choir director. "More of this kind of thing depends on fund-raising."

Amahl and the Night Visitors was first produced in the early 1950s and broadcast on national television. It has since become a favorite around Christmas time.

The work has two main characters, a mother and her crippled young son. Taylor asked Laura Wilson, an accomplished operatic singer, to play the adult role. Her 11-year-old student, Hiers Childs, will play Amahl, whose role requires a strong boy soprano.

Wilson is also head of the Charlston Chamber Opera company. The group performed for the first time at this year's Piccolo Spoleto and plans to perform again at next year's festival.

"I decided to put this on because I love the piece and because I had two wonderful singers who would handle it," Taylor says. "And I wanted to catch Hiers before his voice changed." —John Stoehr

The South of Broadway Theatre has been quietly building momentum toward bringing opera to Charleston in between Spoleto Festivals.

So far, there have been two exploratory meetings to gauge the level of interest among the city's classically trained singers for a workshop series intent on providing singer's with experience of the repertoire.

The move to build a "critical mass" of Charleston singers has been part of the business plan of South of Broadway Theatre since the organization formed in 2000, says Mary Gould, head of the nonprofit.

The workshop is part of the theater's Opera Zone programming, which also includes lectures of Metropolitan Opera high-definition broadcasts available free at the Charleston County Public Library on Calhoun Street.

This is not an opera company, but an informal series of workshops, Gould stresses. Something more formal would take longer to establish.

Instead, Gould wanted to start something now and she could, because of South of Broadway's existing infrastructure and resources.

"I wanted to make this happen quick and dirty," Gould says. "This is not for kids. This is for serious, serious singers."

Level of interest is sufficient enough that Gould is planning a debut concert of opera highlights on Dec. 30 at 7 p.m. Admission is free but donations are accepted. —John Stoehr

The reviews of the New York performance of John Adams’ new opera, about the life of Robert Oppenheimer, have been stellar. So opera fans, and even curious culture vultures, should check out the Metropolitan Opera’s high-definition broadcast of Doctor Atomic.

John Adams, who also composed the seminal Nixon in China, explores the gripping and tragic story of the creation of the atomic bomb that changed the course of history. Baritone Gerald Finley plays Oppenheimer, the title character. The show is Nov. 29 at 12:30 p.m., and it’s free at the downtown public library at 68 Calhoun St. For more information, call (843) 805-6804 or go to www.ccpl.org. —John Stoehr

It's hard to believe but the Metropolitan Opera's efforts to expand the profile of opera seems to be working. I'm kidding about the hard to believe thing, but not the results of two years of broadcasting high-definition signals of live Met performances into movie theaters around the country.

According to a new study by Opera America and National CineMedia, more than 920,000 people paid to see the special Saturday afternoon broadcasts in the 2007-2008 season. That's more people than those who went to New York to see the opera firsthand. In one season alone, eight live broadcasts grossed $13.3 million in domestic theaters and $5 million overseas.

For a long time, people said that the problem with opera and classical music was that they were opera and classical music. They'd never gain wide acceptance the way that popular music has, because they are inherently exclusive — they require specialized knowledge beforehand to get any kind of enjoyment out of them. Solution? Crossover appeal. Dumb down the music to hit the coveted middle market.

With $18.3 million in gross revenue, it's pretty clear that the product isn't the problem. Distribution was the problem. That's what critics like The New Yorker's Alex Ross have been saying for some time now. With this new means of getting the art into people's live, the whole elite versus the masses paradigm falls apart. Another way of putting it, the whole niche market versus mass market paradigm falls apart. Why bother aiming to that coveted middle market when you can aim more precisely — getting the product to people who really want it, whether they are in Hollywood, Calif., or Hollywood, S.C.

When we look back at entertainment innovations of the 2000s, we'll remember that it was opera that blazed the trail. Already big movie companies are looking at what the Met has done and saying they want a piece of that action. Why? People aren't coming to movie theaters like they used to. Bad movies, stellar home entertainment, and pristine digital products make going to the movies seem like a hassle. So movie studios and theater companies are trying to find way of getting you back.

Regal's NCM Fathom has been offering special one- or two-night-only broadcasts of anime, sports event, and even the original Rambo lately. These were at the Regal Charles Towne Square 18. Sony Pictures launched last month a division called Hot Ticket, which will offer a live broadcast of Rent when it ends its 12-year run on Broadway. You can expect these to hit Charleston in the fall.