The Midwest Institute of Opera (MIO) presents its 2018 season from July 27 through August 5.
This year’s season will feature Offenbach’s Les Contes D’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffman) with orchestra and Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance with orchestra. All performances will take place in the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall.
Tickets are $18 for adults; $16 for seniors, students, and military personnel; and $8 for children. Tickets can be purchased in advance online or by check at the door.
Les Contes D’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffman) are woven around three women, three idealized figures of the male imagination: Olympia, the mechanical doll; Antonia, the artist; and Giulietta, the courtesan. Hoffmann draws his audience deep into a bizarre dream world while searching for the perfect lover. As he digs further into his fantasies, he gradually loses his grip on reality, finally slipping over the edge. These performances will be sung in French, with English supertitles.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 31
7:30 p.m. Friday, August 3
2 p.m. Sunday, August 5
The Pirates of Penzance is a classic comedy that boasts one of the most famous patter songs in theater history. Frederic, son of a wealthy 19th-century man was to be apprenticed to a pilot, but due to a hard-of-hearing nursery maid, Ruth, was instead apprenticed to a pirate. Not just any pirate, but the Pirate King, Captain Jack Sparrow, leader of the not-so-fierce “Pirates of Penzance.”
Frederic decides to leave the band of pirates and reluctantly takes Ruth with him. Shortly after leaving the pirates, he meets the daughters of the major general and falls madly in love with them, rejecting his maid, Ruth. After they say no to loving him for he was a pirate, the fairest of them all, Mabel, agrees to love him. With his impending marriage to Mabel and his indentures over to the Pirate King, Frederic’s sense of duty calls him to rid the seas of these rather simple ruffians, but the pirates are not going down without a fight. These performances are sung in English, with English supertitles.
11 a.m. Monday, July 30, MIOperatunities Performance (reserved tickets only)
7:30 p.m. Thursday August 2
7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 4
Opera and Song at the Gallery
University Galleries of Illinois State University
11 Uptown Circle, Suite 103
Normal Illinois 61761
Enjoy stunning voices and art work at the University Galleries of Illinois State University. These lunchtime recitals will feature opera, art song, and classical Broadway. All of the singers are performers in the MIO’s summer 2018 productions of Pirates of Penzance and Les contes d’Hoffmann. These concerts are free and open to the public!
12:30 p.m., Friday July 27
12:30 p.m., Saturday July 28
12:30 p.m., Wednesday August 1
The Midwest Institute of Opera has been in residence on the Illinois State University campus since July 2011. The company was started as an effort to provide professional opportunities for emerging opera artists, pianists, and conductors to perform in a full opera production. Previous performances include Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (2011), Don Giovanni (2012), Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance (2012), Verdi’s Aida (2013), Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (2013), Puccini’s Suor Angelica (2014), Bizet’s Carmen (2014), Shore’s The Beautiful Bridegroom (2014), Ravel’s The Bewitched Child (2015), Rossini’s La Cenerentola (2015), Candey’s Sweets by Kate, world premiere (2015), Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (2015), Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (2016), and Verdi’s Falstaff (2016).
