Hopping along a Colorado music-festival tour - Central City, Aspen, Vail
- brought me to Steamboat Springs, a historic little town of 10,000
(swelling to 300,000 in the winter), graced in the summer with a great
deal of arts activity, ranging from the Perry-Mansfield School for the
Performing Arts, the nation's - and most likely, the world's - oldest
summer arts camp, to the 16-year-old Strings in the Mountains.
Small town? You bet. But with lots of gumption and smarts. "Strings"
opened its season with the Tokyo String Quartet, and will close on Aug.
12 with Stanislav Ioudenitch. Perry-Mansfield, founded in *1913*, has
scores of famous alumni, including Agnes de Mille, Doris Humphrey, Jose
Limon, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Julie Harris and Dustin Hoffman.
This year's student production is Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with
George."
And now, a brand-new company, Emerald City Opera, is about to present
"The Magic Flute." The founder-manager-Papagena is Keri Rusthoi, from
the Manhattan School of Music. In the cast: David Malis as Papageno
(one can only hope he won't do a Vaness-Morris disappearing act from the
Aspen "Tosca" gala); an interesting young tenor, Dominique Moralez, as
Tamino; Merola Program alumna Devonne Douglas as Pamina; a Texan Queen
of the Night, Tracy Rhodus; and Met veteran LeRoy Lehr as Sarastro.
Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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