Dinner Theatre: The Maid Mistress
Italian food, Italian wine, and Italian opera: What could be a better combination? This June, you’ll have the opportunity to experience it for yourself, when Spokane Opera presents The Maid Mistress (La serva padrona) in Dinner Theatre at Luigi’s Italian Restaurant. The Maid Mistress stars husband and wife Derrick and Heather Parker, as Dr. Pandolfo and his cheeky maid Zerbina, and musical accompaniment by Greg Presley.
Dinner Theatre is a fantastic way to experience opera for the first time. The Maid Mistress is performed in English (using the Kalmus translation), and has a short running time — only 45 minutes. The ticket includes a meal at Luigi’s, which is a great value, and a perfect time to bring company with you. If you have a friend who has never experienced the pleasures of opera, Dinner Theatre is a good introduction.
The Maid Mistress is a well-known example of opera buffa (comic opera, from which we get the word “Buffoon”). Like verismo opera, which you may have seen in our production of Pagliacci, opera buffa is about common folk in everyday settings. But unlike verismo, which is preoccupied with the dark and sordid, opera buffa is hilarious!
Like many early opera buffa works, The Maid Mistress was created for the intermezzo, or time between acts of larger-scale operas. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Jan. 4 1710-Mar. 16 1736) premiered The Maid Mistress during the premier of his own opera The Proud Prisoner, which did not achieve any measure of success. The Maid Mistress, however, took Europe by storm and is considered a seminal piece that brought the era of Baroque music to a close, and ushered in the age of true Classical music.
Spokane Opera Dinner Theatre takes place June 15, 16, 17, and 22, 23, and 24 at Luigi’s Italian Restaurant. Tickets (which include a meal) are available by calling Spokane Opera at 509-533-1150, or visiting our website.
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