A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, opera a cappella now available at Albany Records

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Zoom Speed Dating Tonight! at University of South Dakota

 This weekend Zoom Speed Dating Tonight! at University of South Dakota was released. It was wittily directed by Tracelyn Gesteland. 

This is likely the last of the zoom versions. The first was Janiec Opera at Brevard Music Center. This was followed by versions at University of Tennessee and then NYU-Steinhardt. All of these were produced by Jo Sandler. There were other online versions, including one at Arizona State University.



There are several notable things about this production. First is Brian Rasmussen's presentation of "Checklist" followed by a newly commissioned song "Open to flaws" (#88) sung by their alter-ego drag persona, Carmen. It's at around 54:00 in the video. At 1:01 you can hear another new song, "I'm in the pep band," (#87) performed by Annika Holdusen. Another notable performance is a swing version of #4, "Dancer" performed by Ellie Whitehead. At 9:00 there's an especially fun version of #27, "Carrie," which really takes advantage of the video format. Performed by Denisse Balandran.

There are several pieces from L'arietta productions "All Dressed Up (No Place to Go)" integrated into the production. I've been pleased about the popularity of these pieces, written during the summer of 2020 and premiered a week at a time during lockdown (they called it Circuit Breaker in Singapore) 

 

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