Donald Pippin's Pocket Opera Performs Martha

Donald Pippin's Pocket Opera will perform German composer Friedrich von Flowtow's Martha at the Napa Valley Opera House on Sunday, February 18 at 2 p.m. The matinee will be performed in English (translation by Donald Pippin) and will feature actors sharing the stage with a pocket-sized philharmonic. Tickets are $35 and $30.

Donald Pippin's approach to opera is to tell the story in the clearest manner possible. He once said that there is "a whole category of operas where, if you don't know the story on the way to the theatre, you won't know it on the way home, either." With Pocket Opera presentations it is really possible to know the plot of the opera on the way home. Pippin brings the story to life via his nationally recognized English versions of opera libretti, in which he translates the spirit of the work rather than word by word, with complete fidelity to the composer's musical intentions.

In Martha, Lady Harriet is blessed with everything usually considered desirable -- youth, beauty, intelligence, charm, wealth and position. Under the placid rule of Queen Anne in an era of relative peace and prosperity (for the lucky few), why is she unhappy? Why the ennui, melancholy, discontent and restlessness? What is the missing ingredient?

She is in for a rude shock. With her good friend Nancy, she follows a wild impulse to visit Richmond Fair, a noisy place of bustle and merriment, where servant girls come annually to auction off their services in hopes of a year's employment, and where the local farmers come to eye the merchandise and make their bids. Here the two highborn ladies, in rustic garb, have the time of their lives masquerading as peasantry, until they find themselves suddenly swept into the action. The two delicately nurtured blossoms have unwittingly hired themselves out as farmhouse servants for a solid year. This is only the first step of an unpredictable adventure. -- www.napavalleyoperahouse.org