Oregon’s Eugene Symphony is in the midst of a monthlong community-wide exploration of the theme of love and fate, which will culminate on November 23 with a concert at the Hult Center featuring the orchestra and actors from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The first half of the program, “Love+Fate: Romeo and Juliet & Porgy and Bess,” will feature scenes from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, performed to music from Prokofiev’s ballet score. In the second half, the Eugene Symphony Chorus and vocal soloists will perform selections from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. The performances are part of Eugene’s citywide Counterpoint Festival 2013, highlighting the ways art forms have been inspired by the theme of love and the role of fate in its outcome. The festival includes readings at Cal Young Middle School of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as Oedipus Rex and the Dark Knight Trilogy. Students have produced a multimedia symposium based on Romeo and Juliet, which will be displayed in the Hult Center lobby from November 20 to 23. Students also will attend the Eugene Symphony’s closed dress rehearsal for the November 23 performance. Throughout the month there have also been film screenings (Blue Is the Warmest Color; Enough Said), music downloads at the Eugene Public Library, and a public lecture, “Love and Destiny in the Work of Simone de Beauvoir” by Bonnie Mann, a philosophy professor at the University of Oregon.
Posted November 12, 2013
