Emotion and music dominated Ice Auditorium at 7:30 Sunday, Nov. 9 when four opera singers, some accompanists and the Linfield Concert Choir presented 15 different opera excerpts. Each performer had a solo and each of them also had a duet with one of the others. The four opera singers were soprano Erin G. McCarthy, mezzo-soprano Hannah Penn, tenor Brian Tierny and baritone Anton Belov, who is also an assistant professor of music.

Belov introduced the event.

“Here we need drama. The voices tend to be bigger, more dramatic. The singers on the stage are not just interested in mere beauty. They are interested in expression,” Belov said.

This interest in expression clearly showed in the performances. The highlights were the performances with more character interaction, such as “The Lover’s Duet” from “I Pagliacci,” performed by Belov and McCarthy.

Theduet depicted the story of two secret lovers meeting once again. Language wasn’t a barrier when it was easy to tell what the characters were doing and feeling solely from the singers body language and facial expressions.

The performances with greater emotion, such as “Habanera” from “Carmen,” performed by Penn showed the power of a singer who knew her character.

”Habanera included a piece from the Linfield Concert Choir, which added to the overall emotion of the piece. Penn would also sway her skirts and smile in an attempt to play up the rebellious character Carmen, “a freedom-loving gypsy.”

The accompanying music added its own piece to the expression in the pieces.

“The orchestra is just not to accompany the singer. The orchestra is to comment on the situation,” Belov said.

Pianist Susan McDaniel accompanied all of the opera excerpts on the piano. Violinist Victoria Gunn went on stage during “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” from “Samson et Dalila.” During the final performance of the night, “Te Deum” from “Tosca,” Albert Kim played the organ, and senior Christian Santangelo played percussion.

Belov mentioned that the final piece held a lot of importance to him, since he had taken a class of students to visit the cathedral the piece had been inspired by. Belov also said that the percussion came from the sounds of the bells that Giacomo Puccini, the composer, notated while listening to them at 5 a.m.
The Roman chant the choir performed was an authentic Roman chant in church at the time the composer was alive.

Santangelo recreated the sound of these bells while Belov sang as Baron Scarpia, the head of a secret police who planned to execute a free thinker and to then steal away the man’s lover, Tosca, an operatic diva.

The piece had the perfect dramatic tone to end the night, exemplifying what Belov described as opera during his introduction to the Gala.