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Billings Farmers Market starts this Saturday at 8:30am in their usual downtown location.

SummerFair also starts this Saturday at 9am at Veterans Park. Please note the new location. It looks like you should go to the Farmers Market in the morning because it is over by noon, and then to Veterans Park for Summerfair in the afternoon.

And then you have a choice: Rimrock Opera Summer Festival with two one-act operas in English starts Saturday evening at 7:30pm at the Babcock Theatre and Sunday afternoon, 3pm, at Shiloh United Methodist Church. This looks like a lot of fun: The Telephone by Gian Carlo Menotti, remember him from Amahl and the Night Visitor? And then Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti.

Wow, this is going to be a busy day. Look for pictures later.

Playbill for the Opera at the Alberta Bair

Of course, I mean La Bohème, first done by the increasingly sophisticated Rimrock Opera Company in 2005 and repeated last weekend. According to Wikipedia it is the second most often performed opera in the USA. Once every five years is probably about right as it takes that long to recover from Mimi’s premature death. That is a quick unofficial photo of the poster to the left.

This was a well-done performance, especially the singing of Billings’ soprano Amy Logan as Mimi. She hits the high notes with clarity but my  favorite is the fullness of her middle and lower register. What a big voice, and a lovely and talented singer and busy musician.

In addition to Logan’s singing, she also brought along some well-behaved and talented (more…)

September 2009

“Theatre is a lunatic asylum, and the opera is a refuge for incurables.”—Gioacchino Rossini

Image outside the Alberta Bear Theatre in Billings, MT.

Remember a few days ago when I told you that Rimrock Opera Company’s weekend production at the Alberta Bair Theatre (In Billings) of Rossini’s Barber of Seville would be good?  Well, I didn’t!  However, it was (more…)