Concert Review of Postcard in Morocco

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The opera Postcard from Morocco began with all of the characters walking busily across the stage. The story line is set of ordinary people, on an ordinary day, waiting for an ordinary train. In part a good opinion to sum performance of this opera up is, ordinary. It did have its high and low points that sent me to this conclusion. For starters I found the performance of the Duquesne contemporary ensemble to be magnificent. David Stock was the music director and guided the various musicians throughout the opera amazingly. Improvisation was used on many occasions, and the combination of call and response with the singers and musicians was great.

To gain my attention in the beginning of the opera was a vocal fight over a dream of having a boat between Matt Morgan's character and Matthew Shaw's character. This was a most pleasant display of range and delivery. Shaw obviously used techniques studied while he was at the Manhattan school of music and opera theatre, where he acquired his master of music degree. I felt Matt Morgan was a bit over acted on some of the vocal parts and had trouble following the music played at points, but an overall performance was adequate. Also, The knock off of the titanic when the two are pushing around on a janitors cart was a bit out of place. With Shaw being a Bass-Baritone, he really brought out the low range of voice integers, which made the difference in the first half of the opera.

During the middle of the opera, Coral Owdom performed a solo. Ms. Owdom received her bachelor of music degree from the university of Dayton followed by a master's degree in music at the Manhattan school of music in the spring of 2000. The performance was great vocally. The use of deep bass from the musicians emphasized changes in her performance and also in the whole opera. But, in a performance, I think it is important to know your audience and adapt to the stylistic comfort that they would most likely be at. When Owdom's character performed a great musical piece, and great example of how a soprano should sound, she turned the opera into a strip tease for the 15 minutes she was singing her solo. There were comments in the crowd from Grandmothers to Grandson's to close their eyes.

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