A CANDLE OPERA CONCERT To Be Presented By Nickel City Opera
Tenor Eric Fennell and sopranos Kristin Sampson and Shirley Wang perform at Canterbury Woods PAC.
Nickel City Opera will present Season 18 with a night of a thousand candles at A Candle Opera Concert, Saturday, June 13th, 7:00pm at Canterbury Woods Performing Arts Center, 705 Renaissance Drive, Buffalo, NY.
Hosted by Founder and Artistic Director, Valerian Ruminski, he will be joined by NCO alumni Tenor Eric Fennell with NYC Soprano Kristin Sampson, LA Soprano Shirley (XiaoLing) Wang with a full orchestra conducted by Maestro Jason Tramm.
In a rare fusion of scale and intimacy, A Candle Opera Concert will feature a 15 piece orchestra and international opera soloists, all set within a sea of over a thousand flickering candles. As candlelight concerts have grown in popularity worldwide with many featuring smaller string quartets, this production elevates the experience to new heights. Under the baton of Maestro Jason Tramm, the Canterbury Woods Performing Arts Center provides a cinematic backdrop journeying through opera's most beloved moments, including Puccini's Nessun Dorma from TURANDOT, Una Furtiva Lagrima from THE ELIXIR OF LOVE, The Consecration Scene from AIDA and Symphonic interludes by Mascagni and Rossini.
“I am thrilled to be returning to Buffalo for a new engagement and looking forward to seeing all of our old friends..”, says NCO Founder and Artistic Director Valerian Ruminski. “We thought it was time for Nickel City Opera to emerge with a very intimate and special concert so we decided to have it lit solely by more than 1000 candles for a lovely and romantic ambient evening of opera. This is candlelight like you've never heard it before combining the whispered intimacy of a candlelit room with the raw, hair-raising power of a full orchestra and live opera; not just a concert but a sensory immersion. Since our last successful show, The Falling and the Rising with the US Army, I have been singing and traveling; the role of Benoit for the first time with Opera de Montreal in La Boheme, 18 performances of Le Nozze di Figaro in Biel Switzerland and appeared as the art dealer Eduardo di Valfierno in the musical Mona Lisa Missing in Hollywood CA. In Palm Springs, CA, I participated in concerts at The Plaza Theatre and Revolution Stage Company as well as Rigoletto at the McCallum Theatre and appearances with Coachella Valley Classical Voices. It's always good to be home though and I look forward to seeing everyone at the candle concert."
Opened in August 2023, the new Canterbury Woods Performing Arts Center, a $7M, 13,500 sq ft, 250 seat state-of-the-art, energy efficient venue for the arts has become a cultural hot spot. With raised stage, sloping floors, fan shaped seating with no straight walls or conventional corners, the theatre will be transformed by the warm glow of flameless LED candles, chosen to preserve the architectural integrity of the site while creating a visual ocean of light.
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