The Peking Opera Company of Hebei performs at 8 p.m. March 6 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
It's definitely not Western-style opera. No overweight tenors or overbearing divas to be found here. It is a dazzling display of martial arts, fencing, acrobatics, baton twirls, as well yards of satin and silk mixed with traditional storytelling and extraordinary singing.
The company, founded in 1935 by the Li Family Troupe, became the Hebei Opera Company in 1945, performing a traditional style of Chinese art known as Peking Opera. The Hebei company is among the best of many companies performing this stylized and ritualized art form whose roots date back to 1027 B.C. The Peking-style of opera solidified in style about 200 years ago and is the most popular traditional art form in China.
Performers begin training at age 9 or 10 and many remain with the troupe for their entire lives. Some 200 individuals make up the company with 56 members touring.
The company will perform four excerpts from its repertoire of day-long operas. The four vignettes highlight the prodigious skills of the performers.
A narrator and program notes guide the audience through the opera, performed entirely in Chinese.
Vivid costumes and fantastical-face makeup (different colors symbolize good, evil, sin, integrity) and an array of props help tell the ancient stories. The acting is similarly symbolic, with years of refinement stylizing detailed movements that indicate mountain climbing or a marching army.
The singing is unlike Rossini or Verdi as well. Unlike Western music with its 12 musical tones, Chinese music relies on five tones in its scale. And because the Chinese language relies on pitch and tone to denote different meanings for the same sound (which often seem undetectable to the Western ear), the music must accommodate these nuances. A small orchestra composed of traditional Chinese instruments accompanies the troupe.
Tickets for the 8 p.m. performance are $22, $18 and $14. UNL, 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 472-4747 or toll free, 1 (800) 432-3231 for ticket availability. Box Office hours are 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays. On performance weekdays, the Box Office is open from 11 a.m. through the first intermission. For evening performances on weekends, the Box Office opens at 3 p.m.
Lied Center programming is supported by the Friends of Lied and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the Mid-America Arts Alliance; and the Nebraska Arts Council. All events in the Lied Center are made possible entirely or in part by the Lied Performance Fund, which has been established in memory of Ernst F. Lied and his parents, Ernst M. and Ida K. Lied.
Boehm Woodwind Quintette at Sheldon Gallery March 7The celebrated Boehm Woodwind Quintette will perform at 8 p.m. March 7 in Sheldon Gallery as part of the Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music 33rd annual series of concerts. Named after Theobald Boehm, whose remarkable 19th century innovations in flute construction influenced manufacture of all woodwind instruments, the ensemble has been awarded numerous grants and has released seven CD recordings that have been hailed as achievements of musicality and virtuosity.
The repertoire of the Quintette is quite broad but, as with most woodwind quintets, the Boehm regularly performs many works by contemporary composers, some of which have been commissioned or premiered by the ensemble. The Lincoln program includes Diversions by Lee Hoiby, Pastorale, Opus 21 by Vincent Persichetti, Quintet by Walter Piston, Andante (K.616, originally written for a clock-work organ) by Wolfgang A. Mozart, and Quintet, Opus 95 by Joseph Foerster.
Members of the Quintette are Sheryl Henzi, flute, who has appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra; Phyllis Lanini, who performs with the New York City Ballet and the Brooklyn Philharmonic; Steven Hartman, clarinet, who is associate principal, New York City Ballet, and principal, Brooklyn Philharmonic; Jeffrey Lang, horn, who has performed with the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera; and Robert Wagner, bassoon, principal with the New Jersey Symphony.
The concert will be preceded at 7:30 p.m. by program comments by John Bailey, UNL faculty flutist. Following the performance a reception for audience and artists will occur in the Sheldon Great Hall. Parking for persons with special needs is available in the lot north of the Gallery. Individual admission, paid at the door, is $25 for adults or $5 for students. For more information call 435-5454.
The UNL School of Music will present two Puccini one-act operas, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, at 8 p.m. Feb. 28 in Kimball Recital Hall.
Tickets are $12 adults, $6 students and are available at the Lied Center Box Office, 472-4747.
Experience the miraculous tale of the 17th century nun Sister Angelica seeking news of her lost child. Then enjoy a good laugh as the relatives of the late Buoso Donati fight over their inheritance and engage the assistance of the wily Gianni Schicchi.
Sung in Italian with English supertitles, these classics feature full sets and costumes with the University Symphony Orchestra, Tyler White, conductor. William Shomos is the stage director.
Duo-guitarists Sérgio and Odair Assad are considered by many to be the foremost guitar team in the world today. They bring their flawless virtuosity to Kimball Recital Hall for an 8 p.m. concert March 3 as part of the Lied Center for Performing Arts' season.
The Brazilian-born brothers are credited with "double-handedly" reviving Brazilian music for the guitar. Sergio, born in 1952, and Odair, in 1956, were introduced to Brazilian music by their father, a famed mandolinist. Their uncanny ability to play guitar together was encouraged and mentored under seven years of study with Monina Tavora, a disciple and former student of Andres Segovia. The brothers made their American debut in 1969 and have toured worldwide since. In addition to mastery of Brazilian-style guitar, the duo excel at the standard classical guitar repertoire as well as the music of South American composers who combine North American jazz with South American influences and idioms.
Critics note the tight singularity of the Assads' playing, as if two guitars are one. Their unified sound and dazzling speed is a hallmark of their musicality. They have cut four compact discs - including two featuring Latin American composers and a recording of Baroque compositions. The latest CD, "Saga Dos Migrantes" (Nonesuch, 1996), features transcriptions by Sérgio Assad.
For their Lincoln concert, they will perform works by Giuliani, Scarlatti, Milhaud, Piazzolla, Nazareth, Gismonti, Riley and Gershwin.
Tickets for the 8 p.m. performance are $18 and $14. 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. Target "Treatseats" discount coupons are available at participating Target stores.
Call the Lied Box Office at 472-4747 or toll free, 1 (800) 432-3231 for ticket availability. Box Office hours are 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays. The Box Office opens in Kimball Hall one hour prior to the performance. For more information about this performance or other Lied Center programs, see the Lied Center's web page at http://www.unl.edu/lied.
This presentation of Sérgio and Odair Assad is made possible in part with generous support from Dietze Music House, Inc., and Metromail Corp.
Jean-Luc Godard's legendary 1963 film Contempt (Le Mépris), showing at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater on March 5 and 6, starring Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Michel Piccoli, is re-released by Martin Scorsese in dazzling new color and Cinemascope prints.
Says Scorsese, "Contempt is one of the key modern films - brilliant, romantic, and genuinely tragic. It's also one of the greatest films ever made about the actual process of filmmaking. Its re-release is long overdue."
Adapted from Alberto Moravia's novel "A Ghost at Noon (Il Disprezzo)", Contempt opens in Rome's Cinecitá studios, empty by the economic crisis of Italian (and European) cinema. Bardot stars as a woman who gradually develops an overwhelming contempt for her husband, played by Michel Piccoli. Previously a talented and driven playwright, Piccoli is hired to doctor the script for a new film version of The Odyssey, and is caught between the conflicting interests of the purist director (played by German master Fritz Lang as himself) and the film's vulgar American producer (Jack Palance), whose primary (commercial) interests lie in filling the screen with topless mermaids. As Piccoli ultimately compromises both his work's and his wife's dignity, Bardot's ripened and destructive disdain for her husband results in the story's tragic conclusion. Contempt was partially backed by the late Joseph E. Levine, who, legend has it, was totally unaware that Godard's characterization of the crass American mogul was modeled on Levine himself. (Godard also had "contempt" for the film's Italian producer, Carlo Ponti, whose dubbing and tampering with the musical score rendered its Italian version meaningless.)
Conspicuously absent even from Godard retrospectives, Contempt has been one of the most eagerly sought-after films - a "Holy Grail" on par with Buñuel's Belle de Jour (which Scorsese also presented). For decades, the only existing prints of Contempt were completely faded and battered.
Contempt is showing on March 5 and 6 at 7 and 9 p.m. Admission is $6; $5 for students; and $4 for senior citizens, children, and members of the Friends of the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater.
Did you know that University researchers are beefing up the vitamin content in bison? Have you heard about the NU professor who created one of the largest man-made forests in the world? Do you know the difference between good calories and bad calories? If you had seen a recent episode of "Life Nebraska Style" you could say "yes" to all these questions.
"Life Nebraska Style" is a weekly, half-hour television magazine that spotlights interesting people and activities at the University of Nebraska. It's jointly produced by UNL Public Relations and IANR's Communications and Information Technology's Electronic Media unit.
This week on "Life Nebraska Style":
Jody Spalding shows us why the Barkley Center's audiology clinic is one of the best in the nation.
Professor Glenn Hoffman's Capstone Engineering class tackles "real-life" problems for "real-life" clients.
University extension educators team up with the Omaha World-Herald to save trees damaged in last October's snow storm.
Professor Pat Crews gets wrapped up in a quilt exhibit.
And Ron Bonnstetter puts the "fizz" in physical science.
"Life Nebraska Style" airs at various times throughout the state. Here's where you can find it in your area:
- Curtis Bright, Public Relations
The role that Nebraskans played overseas and on the home front during World War II will be featured in a documentary, "THE WAR Comes to Nebraska," airing at 7 p.m. March 9 on the Nebraska ETV Network.
The program, which will air as part of the Nebraskans for Public Television spring membership drive, repeats at 11 a.m. March 15.
In addition to the 140,000 Nebraskans who enlisted in the armed services, thousands more worked in war plants or made other direct contributions to the war effort. Eleven Nebraska air fields trained thousands of airmen and the Naval Ammunition Depot in Hastings provided 40 percent of the Navy's artillery shells. The Martin Bomber plant at Bellevue built B-26 Marauder and B-29 Superfortress bombers, including the two Superforts that dropped atomic bombs on Japan and ended the war.
Ironically, combatants from both sides found respite in Nebraska. The canteen at North Platte's train station served more than 6 million service men and women. Meanwhile, captured Italian and German soldiers were interned at 24 P.O.W. camps in Nebraska.
The American Experience presents "Surviving the Dust Bowl," the story of the people who stuck it out, enduring drought, dust, disease - even death - for nearly a decade at 8 p.m. March 2 on the statewide Nebraska ETV Network.
Beginning in 1931, much of the Southern Plains - the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, western Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico - were turned into a wasteland by powerful windstorms carrying millions of tons of stinging, blinding black dirt. It took a thousand years to build an inch of precious topsoil in these fields, but only minutes for it to blow away. A journalist traveling through the region dubbed it the "Dust Bowl."
Does a minister's first allegiance belong to his conscience? Or does the church and its hierarchy command his unquestioning obedience? Just one week before the United Methodist Church puts a Nebraska minister on trial for conducting a wedding ceremony for two lesbians, Statewide examines this complex issue in-depth in a "Perspectives" segment airing at 8 p.m. March 6.
The series also provides up-to-the-minute news reports from across the state and other features of interest.
Statewide correspondent Bill Kelly reports on controversy that has swelled within the ranks of United Methodists since last September. Church leaders initially suspended Creech from his pulpit, then decided to stage - for the first time in 25 years - a church trial on charges of violating the denomination's religious principles.
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