Baylor Opera to Perform Musical Hits at the Hippodrome

by Lauren Venegas, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
The Baylor University School of Music will present "An Evening of Opera, Operetta and Musical Theatre" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25, at the Waco Hippodrome in downtown Waco.
Twenty-one gifted student vocalists will perform arias from operas and operettas, as well as stage hits from Broadway musicals. Michael Johnson is director of Baylor Opera Theatre, and the accompanist for this concert will be Andrew Hudson.
"This is a fun chance to sample greatest hits from all kinds of different operas and musical pieces from the18th 19th and 20th centuries," said Dick Veit, concert and promotions manager for the Baylor School of Music.
Veit also said that this will give Baylor students, faculty and the Waco community a chance to hear the selections in an intimate setting that the Hippodrome provides.
Among the composers of opera and operetta represented in the program are Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, Georges Bizet, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Lehár, Jacques Offenbach, Jules Massenet, Igor Stravinsky, Vicente Martín y Soler, Johann Strauss, Jr., Jacques Halévy, George Frideric Handel, Kirke Mechem and Richard Wagner.
Excerpts from musical theater include two selections by Stephen Sondheim's The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.
"Hopefully this will also give those in attendance a taste to explore certain pieces of music a little more," Veit said.
Tickets for this event are available by calling the Waco Hippodrome at (254) 752-9797.