To celebrate and honor the 250th anniversary of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, students from the BYU Opera Scenes program will perform a night of scenes from several of Mozart's most famous works.

While Mozart's operas are usually cast with professional singers, not all of the students chosen have advanced training to bring down the house. Many who audition and are selected join the program to gain singing and acting experience to develop their skills for future main-stage productions.

"The beginners look a little like puppets on a string," said director Arden Hopkin. "As they gain more experience they start to find their own internal motivations for the things they say and the way they deliver messages. The first timers are just trying to avoid making mistakes."

Learning to sing opera is different from other musical theater, Hopkin said, because the students are learning how to develop the character and story lines while moving on stage, singing and interacting with the other performers.

"The program is a chance for students to gain experience by doing excerpts," Hopkin said. "Many of them start out self-conscious and are more careful. As they become more confident they take more risks musically and dramatically."

In taking on these opera scenes, students had to learn how to communicate well with the other performers on stage and work on their interactions with each other instead of focusing on their individual performances. Different faculty members and advanced students provided guidance and direction to the students for the various scenes. Several pieces include scenes from Mozart's operas "Idomeneo," "Cosi fan tutte" and the popular "Le nozze di Figaro," or the "Marriage of Figaro," directed by Professor Ruth Christensen. Students will perform each scene in the original languages with English supertitles.

"Le nozze di Figaro is originally in Italian and the students have had to learn how to put language skills together," she said. "Some have struggled with this, trying to sound like an Italian singer and not American."

Christensen said when auditioning, she and other faculty members look for younger students, sophomores and juniors, to give them the opportunity to piece together acting and singing. The students for this performance, she said, have gained more confidence and have progressed as they have rehearsed for their performance.

"They are still young," she said. "They've progressed in the ability to showcase their feelings as they sing, move around and interact with other people. It has been really interesting to see how they have learned to put the pieces together."

Performances run from Feb. 22 - 25, 2006, at 7:30 p.m. in the Madsen Recital Hall. Admission is free.

(For comments, e-mail Josie De Leon at josieema@gmail.com)

Copyright Brigham Young University 22 Feb 2006