Greater Worcester Opera back for a little more of Sondheim's 'A Little Night Music'

It was a lost weekend for Greater Worcester Opera. The opera company was midway through the run of the first Broadway musical it had ever performed, Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music," back in March, 2020, when the lights had to be be put out.

The March 6, 7 and 8 performances had gone well at Stageloft Repertory Theater in Sturbridge. Still upcoming were performances March 13, 14 and 15. Then came the pandemic lockdown.

"It was was a beautiful production. We were heart-broken," recalled Elaine Crane, founder and executive director of Greater Worcester Opera who also had one of the lead roles in the production as Desirée.

"We packed up our stuff," she said. The assumption was that the company would put on the second weekend of the show fairly soon.

"Who knew?" Here we are, four years later."

Once more, with feeling ...

Greater Worcester Opera will revisit "A Little Night Music" with a new production running June 6 to 9 at Calliope Theatre at Calliope Productions in Boylston.

A lot can happen in four years. "Stageloft doesn't even exist any more," Crane observed sadly. On the plus side, the small nonprofit Greater Worcester Opera adjusted through the pandemic and celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. But there were some lingering thoughts about "A Little Night Music."

"It just felt unfinished," Crane said.

"A Little Night Music" opened on Broadway in 1973, when it won six Tony awards including for Best Musical. With music and lyrics by  Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler, the musical is inspired by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film "Smiles of a Summer Night."

Set in 1900 Sweden, "A Little Night Music" explores the romantic lives of several couples, including the tangled web of affairs centered around actress Desirée Armfeldt. A Quintet of five singers comment like a Greek chorus throughout the show. The musical's best known song is "Send in the Clowns," sung by Desirée.

While a musical, it is not a little lite music. Sondheim's works could often be close to opera, and that is the case of "A Little Night Music."

"The Quintet is very operatic. It has an operatic scope. It's been done by quite a few opera companies," Crane noted about the show.

"It's going great," she said of Greater Worcester Opera's new rehearsals. "When you do something again you go a little deeper than the first time, so that's kind of nice. It's going to be beautiful. We're really excited."

'We're super excited'

The stage director and music director of the 2020 production, respectively Richard Monroe and Aldo Fabrizi, are back for the new show, as are almost half of the original cast, with the others not returning for varying reasons. Greater Worcester Opera held auditions in November, which led to some terrific new finds of talent, Crane said.

One was an opera singer from Virginia, who was cast as the young and confused Henrik. "He was great," Crane said. His plan was to to stay with friends in the Boston area during the course of the run of "A Little Night Music." But he called shortly before the start of rehearsals to say that he had just signed an international contract and would be unavailable. After an emergency call was put out there was another discovery — Chris Van Liew of Holden who as cast as Henrik for his first appearance with the company. "He's wonderful. We're super excited. It just worked out so well. And he's right here."

Greater Worcester Opera is "chugging along. It's a lot of work," Crane said. "But with community theater a big part of it is the people. We all love each other and we want to do things together."

Among its activities, the company performs performs one full mainstage production a year, usually in June, in English translation. 'It takes all year to produce it," Carne said.

Spirit of community theater

Now at 21 years, Greater Worcester Opera has an extensive opera repertoire including including "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," "The Mikado," "The Pirates of Penzance," "Carmen," "Die Fledermaus" and "Amahl and the Night Visitors." Many of the artists are professionally trained singers as the company seeks to combine musical excellence with the spirit of community theater.

In the summer of 2020 after the lockdown the company presented a Zoom play reading, and two concerts and a dramatic reading on Facebook Live that had been prerecorded at Crane's home. In December 2020,  "A Gilbert and Sullivan Christmas Carol Radio Play" was also prerecorded.

Following "A Little Night Music" in 2020, the company returned to exploring sophisticated modern musicals in 2021 with a livestreamed production of "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder." The musical by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak is based on British writer Roy Horniman's Edwardian novel "Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal," which also inspired the wonderfully darkly comic 1949 British movie "Kind Hearts and Coronets" starring Alec Guinness and Dennis Price.

Calliope Productions was the venue for the company's return to live, in-person performances in 2022 with a double bill of Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi" and "Suor Angelica."

'We wanted to do it live'

Last year as part of its 20th anniversary, Greater Worcester Opera put "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" on the stage at Calliope Productions.

"It was a very complicated show but we wanted to do it live," Crane said. "It was great. It was so good." The production was nominated for several Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theaters awards.

Also last year, the company had a concert/fundraiser "Broadway Upside Down" at the Loring Auditorium at the Briarwood Community in Worcester and a "20th Anniversary Alumni Concert" at the BrickBox Theater at the JMAC in Worcester.

Meanwhile, Greater Worcester Opera has also continued with its annual Summer Concert Series. It was at Briarwood for many years until the pandemic and then went outside for a couple of years at the West Boylston Bandstand before being returning to Briarwood last year.

The outdoor concerts "were lovely but it was very weather dependent," Crane said. "The first year it rained a lot. Another time it was so hot people didn't want to come."

This year's Summer Concert Series will again be at Briarwood on Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. July 10 through July 31 with a different theme and singers each night. Some of the singers who auditioned in November will be featured.

"Briarwood is kind of our home base. We rehearse there. They've been very kind to us. It's a nice arrangement," Crane said.

Greater Worcester Opera is already thinking about its main stage production for next year. "We're still deliberating. We'll see," Crane said.

"We'll be there," she added.

'A Little Night Music' — Greater Worcester Opera

When: 7:30 p.m. June 6, 7 and 8: 2 p.m. June 9

Where: Calliope Productions, 150 Main St., Boylston

How much: $25; ​$22, students and seniors; $12 children 12 and under. greaterworcesteropera.org

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Greater Worcester Opera back for a little more "A Little Night Music"