Opera show benefits Middle Way

On Sunday night, the Buskirk-Chumley Theater and Middle Way House welcomed the community to enjoy a night of opera at the theater. The 20th annual Night At The Opera is a fundraiser for Middle Way House, which provides support and shelter to victims and families of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

Sylvia McNair, a two-time Grammy award-winning soprano and senior lecturer in voice at the Jacobs School of Music, performed throughout the evening. Distinguished lecturer of music in voice and world-renowned baritone Timothy Noble also performed, as did soprano Lisa Williamson and master’s students mezzo-soprano Erin Houghton and tenor Matthew Wells.

Host George Walker of WFIU started the show with an introduction to the audience.

“Give yourselves a hand,” Walker said, adding a reference to the abbreviation of the event’s title. “You are the largest group to ever attend a NATO summit.”

Journalism professor and writer Peter Jacobi served as Master of Ceremonies.

Local entertainer Joe Lee also added entertainment as a Groucho Marx impersonator. A one-time professional circus clown, Lee had a chance to hear McNair rehearse for the event.

“It’s going to be a wonderful evening,” Lee said before the show.

As a producer and performer, Williamson led the audience into the musical performance of the evening with an animated song that jokingly contemplated table arrangements for the dinner to follow. Williamson also performed “Hymn to the Moon” from Dvorak’s “Rusalka” and a comical “Adelaide’s Lament” from Frank Loesser’s “Guys and Dolls.”

A Mansfield, Ohio, native, McNair received her Masters of Music from IU in 1983. Last night, McNair shared with the audience selections from George Gershwin, Frank Loesser and Leonard Bernstein.

“I hope they have a good time, and they give a lot of money to the Middle Way House,” McNair said before the show, in reference to the audience. She added that the Middle Way House does a great thing for the community.

Middle Way House has the promise of a $400,000 pledge from the Kresge Foundation, a foundation that supports communities by building nonprofit organizations, if they can complete their goal of raising $4.6 million by the year’s end. They are $350,000 away from reaching that goal, IU’s first lady Laurie Burns McRobbie said.

In this two-act evening at the opera, McNair helped both begin and end the show. To start, she sang Gershwin’s “Summertime,” a sultry aria from the 1935 opera “Porgy and Bess,” and got toes tapping with the musical number “What A Movie!” from Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti.”

Up-and-coming opera performers Wells and Haughton performed numbers in between. Wells started with an aria from George Frideric Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” and Haughton followed with a performance of “Habanera,” a classic number from Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.” The two also didn’t miss a beat when they performed a duet of “O Happy We” from Bernstein’s “Candide.”

During intermission, Walker and Lee announced the winners of the evening’s prizes, which included two season tickets to IU’s Theater, four tickets to a performance of Dresden Staatskapelle at the IU Auditorium and two CDs signed by Andre Watts.

McRobbie presented a call to action in support of efforts underway at Middle Way House. A board member of Middle Way House, McRobbie is also a chair of the New Wings Community Partnership, a fundraising effort for Middle Way House that will help convert the old Coca-Cola building on South Washington Street into an emergency shelter in addition to their shelter on Kirkwood Avenue.

“This is all about raising money for our emergency shelter, and we need that,” said Susan Lyons, coordinator for special events and communications at Middle Way House.

In the second act, Noble took the stage to perform “Joey, Joey, Joey” from Loesser’s “The Most Happy Fella” and two heart-warming duets with friend McNair. The two performed the closing number, a beautiful rendition of Bernstein’s “Tonight” from “West Side Story.”

“I thought everybody was terrific,” Noble said after the show, adding that a show is a success every time it receives a standing ovation.