Giving Thanks for Werther

It seems as though just yesterday we were having a fun romp with Don Quixote in the Brown Theatre. Amid the holiday festivities, Kentucky Opera will present Werther at the Kentucky Center. It's not the candy, it's pronounced Vair- tair.

Our photographer J.David Levy slipped me a few images from the piano dress rehearsal on Sunday, just to share with our blog readers.


Garrett Sorenson sings the role of our tragic hero, Werther. A poet so in love with Charlotte, that all he can do is compose poems for her beauty and grace. Sorenson has an easy task with this as the object of his affection on stage is his wife in real life, Elizabeth Batton. The couple will be on WHAS 11 in the noon hour on Wednesday, November 26. Be sure to tune in.


If you just can't wait until Wednesday, listen to a podcast interview on Classical 90.5 between the couple and Scott Dowd.

Be aware that it doesn't end well for our romantic poet. He does himself in, and we at Kentucky Opera are in no way condoning the violence of suicide.


Tickets are available by calling 502.584.7777 or by clicking here.

So much going on!

Kentucky Opera celebrated the Patron's Party last night at Steve Van Hooser & Wayne Jenkins' last night. What a great time. The studio artists performed a choral piece from the Baroque Showcase that will open on Friday 11/14 and the Werther cast showed off their vocal prowess with arias and ensembles from the Massenet piece slated to open on 11/28. This is the first time in my history with the company that we had overlapping rehearsals. It's kind of exciting.

Yesterday, we had a nice article in the Courier Journal featuring the Studio Artists and the Showcase of Baroque Opera. the story was accompanied by a terrific photo of the "kids" as we call them, clockwise from front, Juliana Moura, Benjamin Robinson, Conor Angell, Heather Phillips, Natalie Krupansky and Courtney McKeown. The coach/accompanist Naoko Suga is not pictured.

Rehearsals for the Baroque piece have been in the 2nd floor lobby of ArtSpace. If I can locate the camera, I will go and capture the moment.

Today, Andrew Adler spent some time with out two leads in Werther, Elizabeth Batton and Garrett Sorenson at their home here in Louisville. The couple just moved here from New York with their 10 month old son Jonah, and are very excited about working from home for this production. They were extremely generous with their story and their home, making astute connections between the love story in Werther and their own adoration of one another. It should be a unique angle we rarely get in a preview. We are expecting that article on November 23, hopefully we will get the top of the fold with the charming family photos.