Senior Vincent Povazsay, a student conductor, said both stories are based on Schicchi — a character mentioned in Dante’s “Inferno” — who is called on to help a family falsify their late uncle’s will to receive his inheritance.
Povazsay said the second show, “Buoso’s Ghost,” is somewhat of a spinoff. The show picks up exactly where the first half of the performance leaves off, with musicians and singers in the same spots, playing the same bars of music.
“It’s actually a very interesting pairing musically, and theatrically the plot goes together very well because a lot of questions are answered,” Povazsay said.
Povazsay also said Puccini’s show is a classical opera, and it is part of the standard opera repertoire. He was familiar with this music prior to starting the show, but said Ching’s show was new to him.
“It’s absolutely meant to be the most absurd thing you’ve ever seen in your life, and it’s something that would never ever happen in real life,” he said.
Junior Evan Adair, a singer in the show, had the opportunity to meet Ching last semester when the composer came to visit UNC. He said Ching understands how to set words to music and bring out the text so that it is more humorous.
“His music is great — it’s really hard to write an opera in the 21st century, given that we’ve had so many composers who have already done it so well,” Adair said.
“It’s really hard to create something on scale with that.”
