Jenny Ashman and Brandon Rubendall Star in EVITA, Beginning Tonight at Opera North

Opera North presents Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's EVITA, one of its three Summerfest 2016 mainstage productions, to be held tonight, July 29, through August 13 at the Lebanon Opera House. The tempestuous musical about the rise of Argentina's provocative and controversial first lady Eva Peron will be given a dynamic new production.

Che Guevara will be played by Brandon Rubendall, seen on Broadway in Spiderman, Disaster, Anything Goes and in the national and international tours of Saturday Night Fever, Wicked and Hairspray.

Eva Peron will be played by Jenny Ashman, recently in Sleep No More NYC, The Little Mermaid in concert at the Hollywood Bowl, the world premiere of Romance Language at the Seven Angels Theatre and on Television in A God Named Pablo.

Juan Peron will be played by Mark Womack of Baz Luhrmann's award-winning Broadway production of La Bohème, and star of many major American Opera companies including Sarasota, Knoxville, Chautauqua, and the Boston Lyric Opera, to name a few.

The production will be directed by Evan Pappas (Off-Broadway Liberty, Broadway My Favorite Year, Parade), choreographed by Kurt Domoney (Broadway A Chorus Line) and conducted by Opera North Artistic Director Louis Burkot.

Set designs will be by Paul Tate DePoo (Guys and Dolls at Goodspeed, Young Frankenstein at St. Louis MUNY, Showboat at Boston's Fiddlehead Theatre), and lighting design by John Bartenstein (Les Miserable's, Steel Magnolias and Miss Saigon at North Carolina Theatre).

Opera North's 34th season runs July 9 to August 13 and features three mainstage productions of Puccini's Tosca, Andrew Lloyd Webber's EVITA, and Donizetti's Daughter of the Regiment, at Lebanon Opera House. A series of concerts at landmark locations around the Upper Valley includes a collaboration with Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park (Woodstock, VT) to celebrate the National Parks Service's Centennial, Jazz Night with Fred Haas at Enfield Shaker Museum (Enfield, NH), An Evening with Peter Fox Smith at Woodstock Historical Society (Woodstock, VT), and A Concert on the Veranda at The Fells Historic Estate & Gardens (Newbury, NH). Tickets, priced from $15 - $88, can be purchased online at www.operanorth.org or through the Box Office at (603) 448-0400.

Opera North is the premier professional summer music festival of the Upper Valley. Founded in 1982 and based in Lebanon, NH, it is the only full-time professional opera company serving the tri-state region of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Each summer, Opera North stages three mainstage productions at the Lebanon Opera House and hosts a series of concerts and special events at landmark locations in the area. Opera North's Resident Artist program provides young professional artists with experience and education to further their careers and, through its Education & Outreach Program, Opera North takes free performances of music theatre to local elementary, middle, and high school students, as well as public libraries around the area.

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