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Westben presents The Selfish Giant
4/26/2010
Westben presents The Selfish Giant
A new musical by Brian Finley & Ken Tizzard
based on the short story by Oscar Wilde
June 11 & 18 at 7:30 pm: June 12, 13, 19 & 20 at 2 pm
Westben presents a world premiere musical starring Robert Longo as the Selfish Giant along with Gabrielle Prata as Virginia Snow and Donna Bennett as Linette along with the fifty voices of the Westben Youth Chorus & Friends.
Growing out of several months of discussion and debate, this musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s provocative short story “The Selfish Giant” remains both true to the original while standing alone as a modern work. Brian Finley and Ken Tizzard have masterfully recreated the power and magic of Wilde’s ‘words on paper’ into rich musical themes. Equally relevant to both children and adults, this full length, fully staged theatre piece has a colourful musical score which ranges from infectiously sunny to hauntingly beautiful. It finds an amazing musical meeting place between the worlds of music theatre and opera.
After the success of “Rapunzel” (2005) and “The Little Match Girl Messiah” (2007) both Brian and Ken were excited to join forces to create another musical. Leading busy lives in opposite areas of the music business their creative journey took them through everything from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” to Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”. The two finally decided on Wilde’s evocatively beautiful children’s story as the perfect meeting ground in which to explore their collective creativity.
“Coming from the world of rock and roll it is such a pleasure to work on a project that satisfies a familiar passion, but also takes me on a musical path that I rarely get to tread on.” – Tizzard
For Brian, a classical pianist, composer and director, it was the voice of nature which drew him to the story. “The piece is a struggle between the natural beauty of the Garden and Man’s incessant desire to impose himself on his world. It’s all about seeing the beauty right in front of you - and how better to do that than through the voices of children?” In reference to their unique collaboration, Brian thinks that “working with Ken, there are no boundaries.”
With its themes of greed and giving, refusal and redemption, the piece was hand-crafted for the forces assembled. Baritone Robert Longo is known to music theatre goers as the Beast in the Toronto production of Beauty and the Beast, as well as Javert in the US touring production of Les Misérables. Mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Prata is a favourite with opera audiences of such companies as the Canadian Opera Company and the New York City Opera. Soprano Donna Bennett has an extensive list of international operatic experience including the creation of roles by Leonard Bernstein, Hans Werner Henze and R. Murray Shafer. Donna is also co-founder along with Brian of the Westben Arts Festival Theatre. The Westben Youth Chorus is under Donna’s and Brian’s direction and includes children ages 7 – 18 from the Trent Hills community and beyond.
Contact:
Donna Bennett
Westben Arts Festival Theatre
1-877-883-5777
groups@westben.ca
www.westben.ca
Link: http://www.westben.ca
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