Alumni of the Westminster Choir College CoOPERAtive Program will perform Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel on Friday, January 15 and Saturday, January 16 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, January 17 at 2:30 p.m. in the Robert L. Annis Playhouse on the Westminster campus in Princeton. The semi-staged production will be performed with piano accompaniment and sung in English. Tickets are $25. On Sunday, January 17, children under 12 will be admitted for free when accompanied by an adult.

Originally composed for a children’s Christmas celebration, Hansel and Gretel is a setting of the classic Brothers Grimm tale, and it has found its place as a family favorite complete with enchanting fairies and an evil witch. It has long been a staple of German operatic tradition and is considered an ideal way to introduce children to the theater. Ted Taylor is music director and David Paul is stage director. The cast is composed of alumni of Westminster’s CoOPERAtive summer opera training program.

The CoOPERAtive Program is a three-week intensive program with private coaching, focusing on operatic style, performance techniques, dramatic presentation, language and diction, body awareness, resumé and application advice. Directed by Westminster voice faculty members Laura Brooks Rice and Eric Rieger, the CoOPERAtive Program is presented in cooperation and consultation with professionals in the field of opera.

Music director and conductor Ted Taylor returns for his sixth year as master coach for the CoOPERAtive Program. As pianist he has appeared with such luminaries as Sylvia McNair, Christine Schäfer, Ben Heppner, Kathleen Battle, Eileen Farrell, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Regine Crespin, and Carlo Bergonzi. As a conductor he has appeared with many American opera companies; he made his New York City Opera debut in 2003 conducting La Traviata.

David Paul has worked as a director for opera, theater, and film throughout the United States and abroad. The New York Times hailed his recent production of Gluck’s Iphigenie en Aulide as “a gift to opera lovers,” and the Washington Post has lauded his “sure sense of theater.”

Tickets can be purchased at the door, through the box office at (609) 921-2663, or online at www.rider.edu/arts. All proceeds from these performances will benefit the Westminster CoOPERAtive Program.

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