UNL Opera will be hosting A Wedding on Friday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. and again on Sunday, March 1 at 3 p.m. Both of the performances will take place in Kimball Recital Hall.
A Wedding is a comic opera based on Robert Altman’s 1978 film and was composed by William Bolcom, who served as the inaugural appointee to the Ariel Bybee Endowed Visiting Professor of Opera at the Glenn Korff School of Music.
The curtain opens to find Rita Billingsley, the Wedding Coordinator, finalizing details for the reception. Rita’s obsessive-compulsive dedication to perfection will be hilariously derailed at every turn in the course of this day.
Two very wealthy families are being united by marriage: the Sloans, who represent the classic example of “old money” are an elite Chicago North Shore clan living in Lake Forest, while the Brenners, hailing from Louisville, Kentucky, are the stereotypical “nouveau riche”— loaded, powerful, but generally uncultured.
The reception is held at the Sloan Mansion immediately following the church wedding of Muffin Brenner and Dino Corelli. Muffin is the daughter of Snooks and Tulip Brenner, while Dino is the heir apparent of the Sloan legacy.
Nettie Sloan, the aging matriarch of the family, has not been able to attend the wedding. When she is informed that all 200 invited guests have declined their invitations, she lies down in bed, and expires—getting the proceedings off to a rather inauspicious start.
The Sloan family, indeed, has its issues.
Victoria, the oldest sister and mother of the groom, is a morphine addict. She is provided regular fixes by her alcoholic brother-in-law Jules Goddard, the husband of Victoria’s sister Toni. Toni, too busy running a prosperous factory, seems unaware of Jules’ considerable short-comings. The youngest Sloan sister Diana, also living in the house, is in love with the black butler, Randolph— something utterly scandalous in the eyes of the bigoted Sloan family.
The Brenners have issues of their own. Snooks enjoyed a life of debauchery until the voice of God spoke to him out of a sleazy motel TV set. Inspired to go straight, Snooks gave up booze and women, married Tulip, and five months later their oldest daughter Buffy was born.
In the course of this wedding day much unfolds. Jules and Tulip fall in love and agree to a tryst at a motel in Tallahassee (the one across the street from the Dairy Queen). Bea Sloan, the communist aunt of Dino, shows up unexpectedly with a wedding portrait no one will ever forget. And Buffy, the bride’s sister turns out to be pregnant by Dino, the groom.
It’s a madcap day in which nothing ever really gets resolved. But we’re left hoping that maybe, just maybe, Dino and Muffin will make it after all.
Tickets are Adults $20; Students/Seniors $10. For advance tickets sales, contact the Lied Center Box Office 402-472-4747.
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/efji