Extraordinary Mezzo-Soprano Marilyn Horne Brings Vocal Gifts to Lied
Nov. 2.A diva of first rank, mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne is a singer for whom the music comes first and foremost. It's not her glittering gown, her perfect coif or her stage personality that overwhelms her adoring audiences (although all three are impeccably perfect). It's her clear, focused voice that delivers exquisite bel canto - beautiful singing.
Horne's musical artistry graces the mainstage at the Lied Center for Performing Arts for one performance at 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2. The performance begins one hour before the usual curtain time at the Lied Center.
Horne has few equals among women vocalists. From her first public performance as a 4-year-old singing at a rally for Franklin Roosevelt to her starring roles in the most demanding operas to her career as a solo recitalist, Horne has earned praise for her sublime artistry.
Horne made her reputation as the finest interpreter of Rossini's works; she also is considered among the best Handelian singers in the world. But her repertoire also is peppered with the unusual. At age 20, Horne was Dorothy Dandridge's dubbed voice in the film "Carmen Jones." She cut a record of gospel hymns with Tennessee Ernie Ford. She is a frequent guest on both the David Letterman and Jay Leno shows, has earned a Cable ACE award, has won two Grammies and was nominated for an Emmy for a program for Sesame Street.
And her latest compact disc is a pop recording from RCA titled "The Men in My Life," featuring duets and trios of tunes such as "Swinging on a Star."
She has dazzled critics and audiences from most of the world's great opera stages - the Met, London's Covent Garden and La Scala - and performed with the world's great opera companies. She has delivered well over 1,300 solo recitals; 1997 marks the 30th anniversary of her collaboration with her illustrious accompanist Martin Katz.
Horne's performance at the Lied Center promises to be among the highlights of the 1997-98 season.
Two 15-minute pre-performance talks will occur, beginning at 55 minutes and 30 minutes before curtain in the Lied Center's Steinhart Room as part of Lied's ongoing education and outreach programming.
Tickets for the 7 p.m. performance are $42, $38 and $34. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska Wesleyan University and Doane College students and youth 18 and younger with proper identification can purchase tickets for half-price.
Call the Lied Box Office at (402) 472-4747 or toll free, 1 (800) 432-3231 for ticket availability.
The Lied Center presentation of Marilyn Horne is sponosred in part by the Paula and Woody Varner Endowment of the Lied Performance Fund.
Fact Or Romantic Myth?: Images of American Indians From the Permanent Collection will run Oct. 29 to Dec. 12 at the Great Plains Art Collection, 215 Love Library. Approximately 45 works of art by 20 artists will be on view and will include portraits and other images of American Indians in prints, historical photographs, and paintings. The Friends of the Center for Great Plains Studies will sponsor a gallery talk with slides by Curator Martha Kennedy that will focus on photography of Indians, on Nov. 10, with a reception at 3:30 p.m. and talk to begin at 4 p.m.
From the earliest exploration and settlement of the Great Plains and American West, white artists were fascinated by the Native peoples whom they encountered. Most of the prints, photographs, and paintings in the exhibition date from the last quarter of the 19th century through the first decades of this century. With the coming of government survey expeditions, scattered settlements, and economic activity in the West, the demand for images of American Indians grew, especially in the eastern United States. Formulaic modes of picturing Native peoples as varied "types" quickly developed to meet the expectations of audiences far removed from the rapidly changing conditions faced by these human subjects. The pieces in this exhibit reflect some of these trends, but also include some sensitive portraits of individuals, rather than types.
Many of the artists represented in this exhibit professed a desire to make accurate visual records of the traditional appearances and customs of American Indians, for they perceived that these people were already being changed irrevocably by contact with, and forced assimilation into, white society. The common conviction that American Indians were doomed to vanish in the wake of Manifest Destiny lent further urgency to these painters' and photographers' efforts. Consequently, a romantic motivation also underlay the approaches taken by most of these imagemakers to their human subjects. Many photographers were also strongly influenced by the considerable potential of their images for commercial profit. Both factors, the tendency to romanticize Indian subjects, and commercial incentive, led to less than accurate portrayals of many Indian people.
The earliest images in the exhibit consist of prints of paintings by some of the first artists to portray American Indians, such as Charles Bird King, as well as George Catlin and Karl Bodmer. The latter two were among the first artists to visit and depict American Indians living on the upper Missouri River. Whereas King depicted Indians who were members of delegations visiting Washington, D.C., Catlin and Bodmer drew and sketched their Indian subjects in the field in their customary surroundings, and worked their studies into more finished paintings later. Some of these three artists' paintings were later modified for publication as lithographs, aquatints, or engravings.
The earliest photographs in the show are William Henry Jackson's and Ben Wittick's pictures of Plains and Southwest Indians. Both photographed many Indians in the studio but also a significant number in the field. Other remarkable studio portraits in the show were produced by the photographic team of Adolph F. Muhr and Frank A. Rinehart at the "Congress of Indians" organized at Omaha's Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898.
The exhibition also includes pieces by painters and printmakers such as Elbridge Ayer Burbank, Edwin Willard Deming, Robert Lindneux and Lyman Byxbe, who were active at the turn of the century or later. In addition to portraits of well known Indians such as Geronimo, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Wolf Robe, images of less well known and unidentified individuals in the exhibit also constitute an important part of this pictorial legacy.
Sculptures of Indians from the Christlieb Collection by a number of artists have been selected to complement the two-dimensional works of art on view. Publications relating to these artists' images or containing reproductions of them are also exhibited.
This special exhibit is free and open to the public at the Great Plains Art Collection. Normal hours open: Monday-Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m..; Sunday, 1:30 to 5 p.m.
Morality is a given in the movies; everyone, even the worst of creatures, knows whether he or she is bad or good. In La Promesse, a remarkable film from Belgium opening at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater on Oct. 30, all of that is reversed as a sense of right and wrong struggles to emerge in a young man who never knew there was a difference.
Also showing is a short feature by Britta Sjogren, called A Small Domain, in which an elderly widow (Beatrice Hayes) marks time: days tending her flowers, cleaning her spotless house, and shoplifting at the mall. But as the anniversary of her wedding approaches the pattern of lonely rituals is interrupted by a strange turn of events. A Small Domain is a darkly delicate evocation of the cycles of life.
The presentation of these programs at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater is made possible, in part, with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council, a state agency.
La Promesse and A Small Domain are showing on Oct. 30 through Nov. 1 and on Nov. 6 through Nov. 9. Screenings are at 7 and 9 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays; at 1, 3, 7, and 9 p.m. on Saturdays; and at 3, 5, 7, and 9 p.m. on Sundays. Admission is $6; $5 for students; and $4 for senior citizens, children and members of the Friends of the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater.
Valgerdur Hauksdóttir, a distinguished Icelandic artist on a Fulbright grant to the United States, will be in the UNL Department of Art and Art History Oct. 27-29.
She will be working with printmaking students in workshops and will present a public lecture titled "To Capture the Moment," at 7 p.m. Oct. 28 in the Nelle Cochrane Woods Building, Room 11.
Hauksdóttir's work as a printmaker has established her a strong reputation primarily in the Nordic countries where she has taught, worked and exhibited. In Iceland, she has taught at the Icelandic Printmakers Association, where she has helped to organize a major international exposition of prints in 1987.
Hauksdóttir is a unique bridging personality with her Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking from the University of Illinois, her wide travels for her art and inspirations, and the strength of the Icelandic character drawn from nature, community and history. She received her Bachelor of Art degree from the University of New Mexico.
"It will be fortunate to capture her time during her Fulbright fellowship," said Professor Karen Kunc. "Where her travels in the U.S. have given her tremendous international perspective for comparative research into the status of printmaking today."
Hauksdóttir's artwork, Kunc said, is deeply introspective, brooding abstractions based on natural forms, suggestive of ice, mountains, rocks and atmospheres. She approaches printmaking with an openness to mixing of media - intaglio, lithography, monoprint - with expressive layering of dark colors and collage elements.
While on campus, Hauksdóttir will demonstrate her printmaking techniques and will engage the printmaking students as assistants in all processes and stages of her work.
For more information, contact Kunc, 472-5541.
The UNL Department of Theatre Arts and Dance will present A Lie of the Mind, by Sam Shepard, directed by Paul Steger, at 8 p.m. Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 4-8 in the Studio Theatre.
Filled with enormous vitality, and humor, the play explores the destinies of two families, linked by marriage but set apart by jealousies and distrust, as they seek to survive the tension which results following the savage beating of Beth by her husband Jake. What motivates the family members becomes disturbing and dangerous until Jake is left hoping to find order and meaning in the present by coming to terms with the haunting spectres of the past.
For tickets phone the box office at 472-2073 from noon-5 p.m. Monday through Friday or three hours prior to performances. Tickets are $6 for students, $9 UNL faculty/UNL staff/senior citizens, $10 all others
A performance of Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight! has been added to the Lied Center schedule at 8 p.m. April 22. The originally scheduled performance on April 21 was sold out during the Lied's season ticket sales. Tickets for this additional performance went on sale Oct. 20. To purchase tickets call the Lied Box Office at 472-4747 (800-432-3231 toll free) or stop by the Box Office at 12th and Q.
Executive Director Charles Bethea said, "Due to an overwhelming positive response to this performance, I was compelled to check into the opportunity of adding a second show. Luckily, this tour had an open night and we took it!"
Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight! has set the stage for one-person theater in America over the past 40 years with his Tony Award-winning portrayal. He discusses religion, politics, the opera, the author's early life and Huckleberry Finn. Holbrook's only props include a regal-looking chair, a table cluttered with books, a speaker's lectern and a big cigar. On stage he smokes, jokes, rants and lectures. Holbrook understands Twain, and through him one of the most unique minds of any age continues to flourish.
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