Big bad wolf

Little Red Riding Hood performed
in Randall Jones Theatre this week

By JENNIFER HICKMAN
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL

The Music Department is putting on a pair of one-act operas — Sweet Betsy from Pike and Little Red Riding Hood — which started Wednesday.
Students were cast in the operas during Fall 2002 when the production Schemes, Scams and Scoundrels was also being produced.
“We stopped to focus completely on one production,” said Carol A. Modesitt, associate professor of music and director of both operas.
Modesitt said rehearsals started back up the first day of classes with all lines having to be memorized.
“The students are looking forward to performing these shows,” Modesitt said in a press release. “Both shows operate on so many levels that children and adults can appreciate the underlying moral and ethical values presented, as well as the humor.”
The shows are “more like theatre than opera,” said Crystal Jolley, a junior music major from Riverton who plays the mother in Little Red Riding Hood.
The shows are not based on complex story lines, “making it more understandable,” Jolley said.
Mark Bucci’s setting of Sweet Betsy from Pike involves dancing and is quick paced, Modesitt said.
There are three students in the performance with much of the show in “pantomimed actions,” according to the press release.
Sweet Betsy from Pike is based on a song of the same name.
“I saw Sweet Betsy a while ago,” Modesitt said. “I liked it but couldn’t find it until I found it online.”
Little Red Riding Hood was originally written in 1697 by French writer Charles Perrault, the press release reported.
Modesitt said performers will present both shows for first through third graders at the Heritage Center on Monday.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for the university students in our opera program to not only perform but to interact with the younger children,” Modesitt said in the press release.