Sunday, February 13, 2000
CCM opera professor departing
BY JANELLE GELFAND
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It is official. Jonathan Eaton, opera professor at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music since 1986, is leaving.
“This is my swan song,” Mr. Eaton said between rehearsals for a Kurt Weill double bill he is directing at CCM this weekend. “I've been here 14 years. CCM has been wonderful to me, and a wonderful place to work.”
The 44-year-old opera director has no plans to return after this week. Mr. Eaton is adjusting to life in Pittsburgh, where he is artistic director of Opera Theater of Pittsburgh and building a graduate program in opera at Carnegie Mellon University.
“What's unique about the job, is that half of my responsibilities are at the university and half are with the professional company,” he says. “The idea is that we attract top young talent at the university, and they can perform, if appropriate, as an understudy in a professional company.”
Mr. Eaton is an internationally-recognized expert on Weill, a 20th-century German-born composer. In May, he directed the American premieres of Weill's “The Prophets,” a concert-staging with the Cincinnati May Festival, and Die Burgschaft (the Pledge) at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C.
Weill's music is a passion he'll continue in Pittsburgh, where he is organizing a Kurt Weill Centenary Festival (April 10-May 28).
The festival will include Weill's Der Jasager (The Consenter), based on a Noh drama (the classical drama of Japan), which he will also direct for the New York Japan Society in April. Also being presented are Songplay, the scintillating revue that he directed at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and Die Burgschaft.
Since becoming interested in Weill as a student, “it's been a constant thread in my career, with quite a number of British premieres, American premieres, and a couple of German premieres,” he says.
Mr. Eaton credits CCM for many career high points.
“I particularly enjoyed productions of (Donizetti's) Don Pasquale. I recall very fondly (Janacek's) The Cunning Little Vixon and (Britten's) The Rape of Lucretia. I thoroughly enjoyed my second production, a scandalous version of (Offenbach's) The Tales of Hoffman,” he says.
For information about the Kurt Weill Centenary Festival at Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, call (412) 624-3500 or e-mail OperaTheaterPgh@netscape.net.
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