A Night at the Opera – A Very Rare Two-Piano Fantasy

Benefit concert for Mission Foundation’s Ladies Night Out program. Emceeing the concert is Darcel Grimes, WLOS-TV 13 anchor.

Ladies Night Out provides free mammograms and health screenings to uninsured and underinsured women in our community to fight against women’s breast cancer. The last two benefit concerts were a complete sellout.

Operas are stories sung and told with music. Operatic fantasies present the stories condensed and on the piano, but with all the emotions intact. The visuals projected onto suspended screens present elements of the story that belong with the music being played. And for those who like to watch pianists’ hands, there is also a screen over each piano showing the pianist’s hands from above!

Franz Liszt created only two fantasies on popular operas to be played on two pianos. They are lush, beautiful, exciting works, yet they are rarely played. Their performance together in public makes this event the opportunity of a lifetime.

The producers describe the musical evening as follows:

“Our fantasy begins as Liszt creates the dreams of floating, falling and sweet intoxication. From piano music, to sacred choral and orchestral music, he leads us into the realm of the two greatest opera fantasies for two pianos ever created. So let the dreams begin! Savor each sensation, and let your darker side give in to the power of the music of ‘A Night at the Opera.’”

“Our two pianists, John Cobb and Christopher Tavernier, have been studying and playing these works in various venues for several years. They have enhanced their knowledge of Liszt’s style and compositional methods by listening, with the scores, to Liszt’s 60-plus operatic fantasies written for one piano.

“To set the stage for operatic opulence, the pianists will start the program by presenting a prelude of flavors, weaving together some of Liszt’s most beautiful and powerful solo piano pieces. They will alternate in memorable performances of keynote works that made Liszt the most famous pianist in the world, ending with the notorious Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, arranged exclusively for two pianos.”

The World Masterwork Series benefit concert takes place Saturday, September 5, 2015 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $9.50, available on line or at the ticket office. Diana Wortham Theatre, 2 South Pack Square, Asheville. Call (828) 257-4530 or visit www.dwtheatre.com

All ticket proceeds from the World Masterwork Series at the Diana Wortham Theatre are paid directly to Mission Foundation for their Ladies Night Out program.

Freeburg & Perzina Pianos will also be auctioning off a $10,000 piano, with the net proceeds going to Mission Foundation’s Ladies Night Out program.

John Cobb is an international performer and recording artist known for his broad interpretive range and technical command. Dr. Cobb studied with Claudio Arrau, whose teacher was a pupil of Franz Liszt.

Christopher Tavernier made his debut as the youngest concert pianist in North Carolina at the age of 13, performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 in B Flat minor with the Tar River Philharmonic Orchestra in North Carolina. This year he was named the first International Perzina Artist in the company’s 144-year history

Christopher’s first love is the piano. He began his studies at the age of six and aspires to be a great concert pianist. Although Christopher knows and loves a vast piano repertoire, Franz Liszt is his favorite composer.

Liszt was one of the greatest pianists who ever lived, as well as one of the great composers of the 19th century. Among his many innovations were the invention of the solo recital and the development of the symphonic poem. Liszt was also a prized pupil of Ludwig van Beethoven and a was himself a teacher of renown. Thus Christopher Tavernier’s musical lineage forms a direct line from Beethoven to Lizst, to his pupil who taught Arrau, to Cobb to Tavernier.