Magic Flute

Annapolis Opera's musical tradition for the holiday season, "Mozart by Candlelight," has been even lovelier the past three years after moving to the historical First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis. Built as a theater in 1828, it became a church in 1846, a year after the Naval Academy was established. The candle-lit setting and acoustics make the church an ideal location for the Mozart concert. At Sunday's event, the church was close to its 390-person capacity. Opera President Dennis Monk welcomed the audience, noting that the Annapolis performing arts community will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - which is Jan. 27 - with festival events scheduled at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts: the Annapolis Symphony next month, Ballet Theatre of Maryland in February, the Annapolis Chorale in early March and the opera's Magic Flute in mid-March.

"I like an aria to fit a singer as perfectly as a well-tailored suit of clothes," said a 22-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart's flair for vocal fashion was on display at the St. John's College Great Hall this week, when the Annapolis Opera presented a quartet of talented young singers in a program of excerpts from some of Mozart's greatest works for the musical stage. The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute and the less famous but still wonderful Abduction from the Seraglio were the opera scores represented, along with the chirpy "Alleluia" from Mozart's most famous motet, Exsultate, jubilate.

A musical tradition of the holiday season, Annapolis Opera's "Mozart by Candlelight" was offered Sunday at a new site: historic First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis. Able to accommodate 390 people, the structure was built as a theater in 1828 and became a church in 1846, a year after the establishment of the Naval Academy. After a snowy weekend, First Presbyterian Church, with candles aglow Sunday evening, proved an ideal location for the Mozart concert. Annapolis Opera's artistic and music director, Ronald J. Gretz, arranged a delightful program that showcased four gifted young singers in a selection of arias by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Last weekend's concerts by the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra marked Gisele Ben-Dor's initial foray into the choral repertoire since her ascension to the ASO post last season.Mozart's valedictory work, the problematic Requiem, was performed, along with arias from two of his greatest operas, "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Magic Flute." Ernest Green's Annapolis Chorale was on hand to collaborate in the Requiem.Rounding out the program was "Musica Celestis," a contemporary work for string orchestra by Aaron Kernis.

Ice Cube will make the transition to Christian rock before we see Mandy Patinkin singing Otello or Barbra Streisand screaming Elektra in a Los Angeles Music Center Opera production.But it's not so hard to imagine a couple of Hollywood directors and an actor or two lending a hand with a Mozart comedy or a Gilbert and Sullivan satire. It's been happening for 10 years.The L.A. Opera has often looked to Tinseltown in an effort to juice up the repertoire, tapping Dudley Moore for a production of "The Mikado" (his Ko-Ko was not so bad on the ears)

For many listeners, the existence of Haydn's Masses is their only consolation for the unhappy circumstance of Mozart's early death. The younger composer did not live long enough to produce any operas after "The Magic Flute," but such episodes as the tenor and baritone duet in the "Et Incarnatus Est" of Haydn's "Creation Mass" approach the Mozartean empyrean.Those listeners were made both happy and sad yesterday by the fact that the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and its music director, Tom Hall, performed the "Creation Mass" -- which is not to be confused with the composer's better known, English-style oratorio, "The Creation" -- in Kraushaar Auditorium on the Goucher College campus.

Always a sellout, Annapolis Opera's "Mozart by Candlelight" concert was moved to a new site this year that nearly doubled its audience space. Still, many had to be turned away at both performances Sunday. The concerts were previously held at historic Charles Carroll House in Annapolis. This year's was staged at another historic colonial location, Great Hall at St. John's College in Annapolis. A lovely room reminiscent of European concert halls in Prague, Czech Republic, and Vienna, Austria, the 18th-century Great Hall at St. John's also existed during Mozart's lifetime.

Annapolis Opera celebrated its 35th anniversary last week with a program of arias from many of the productions it has presented over the years. In 1972, Martha Wright, the company's first president, decided with a small group that Annapolis should have its own opera company. She returned for "Bravo 35" on Oct. 27 to accept the good wishes and proclamations of the city of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. Congratulations, wine-sipping and hors d'oeuvres-sampling preceded the main event at the Unitarian Universalist Church, a concert featuring four fine singers who are audience favorites and rising young stars, all under the direction of Annapolis Opera artistic director Ronald J. Gretz.

Less than a year after he warned that the Baltimore Opera Company was facing bankruptcy, BOC chairman Lowell Bowen has announced that "the opera has risen from the dead."Bowen said yesterday that unaudited financial statements for the fiscal year that ended June 30 show an operating surplus of $41,000, compared to a loss of $476,000 at this time last year. "That we survived is amazing," Bowen said. "That we finished in the black is miraculous."The company survived for two reasons. Last December it initiated a successful $1 million "Save the Opera" campaign that erased the company's long-term debt and provided enough cash flow to meet costs.

Mozart fans can look forward to two more events at Maryland Hall next month marking his 250th birthday: the Annapolis Chorale's concerts March 3 and 4 and the Annapolis Opera's The Magic Flute, scheduled for March 17 and 19. The Annapolis Chorale's program will cover Mozart's career, starting with his Symphony No. 1, composed at age 8; an opera, The Impressario, from his middle career; and Requiem, his final work. "When I think about Mozart, I see someone whose entire life was steeped in music from the time he could walk and talk until his very early death," Annapolis Chorale director J. Ernest Green said this week.