LA OPERA with Singers!

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro
Sunday, March 15th, 2:00 p.m.

LA Opera is presenting the popular comedy opera that is sure to delight: Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. The story follows Figaro as his world is turning upside down. On the eve of the wily barber’s marriage to Susanna, Count Almaviva’s wandering eye has landed on the lovely bride-to-be. Servant and master go head to head, and even the Countess herself must spring into battle when she learns of her husband’s plans. Or is she embroiled in a liaison of her own? On Sunday, March 15 in Crowell Library’s Barth Community Room, learn all about this classic opera and enjoy performances by two local singers, Anne Gholson and Cody Lowery, accompanied by keyboards. They will sing selections from Mozart’s opera interspersed with the speaker’s discussion.
Cody Lowry grew up in Pasadena,CA and studied classical voice at Pasadena City College. He's worked with Aram Barsamian, Gail Gordon, and thanks to the Pamela L. Gerard Scholarship, the internationally acclaimed artist Carol Vaness. He has performed such roles as Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro at PCC), Masetto (Don Giovanni), Don Alfonso (Cosi fan Tutte at The Broad Stage), and Papageno (The Magic Flute at PCC). Anne Gholson obtained her B.A. of Music, with a focus in Vocal Performance at Cal State University of Long Beach. Once her love of opera had blossomed, she performed the role of Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro. Anne has had musical theater roles as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, and Vera Charles in Mame.

An opera can sweep you away to foreign lands, take you back in time, dazzle you with pageantry and bring history to life. It is literature, social studies, cultural diversity, multiple languages and most of all, it is exciting! Come explore the world of opera through LA Opera’s education programs. Opera has something for everyone. From the breathless opening notes of the overture to the touching final curtain, Mozart’s comic masterpiece brilliantly bucks the conventions of his time to deliver an ageless message of love and forgiveness. Don’t miss this special treat!

Meet the Author: Mona Simpson

Thursday March 12th 7:00 p.m.

The Friends of Crowell Public Library’s Meet the Authors series continues with Mona Simpson whose powerful new novel, Casebook, is a witty, perceptive story of family life, part coming-of-age story and part detective yarn. The acclaimed and award-winning author of Anywhere But Here and My Hollywood, Simpson’s latest is about a young boy’s quest to uncover the mysteries of his unraveling family. What he discovers turns out to be what he least wants to know: the inner workings of his parents’ lives. And even then he can’t stop searching.

The boy’s amateur detective work starts innocently but quickly takes him to the far reaches of adult privacy as he acquires knowledge that will affect the family’s well-being, prosperity, and sanity.
Casebook reveals an American family both coming apart at the seams and, simultaneously, reconstituting itself to sustain its members through their ultimate trial. Mona Simpson gives the reader a boy hero for our times whose story remains long after the novel is over.

Mona Simpson moved to Los Angeles as a young teenager and attended UC Berkeley, where she studied poetry. She worked as a journalist before moving to New York to attend Columbia's MFA program. During graduate school, she published her first short stories in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review and Mademoiselle. She stayed in New York and worked as an editor at The Paris Review for five years while finishing her first novel. Anywhere But Here. After that, she wrote The Lost Father, A Regular Guy and Off Keck Road.
Her work has been awarded the Whiting Prize, a Guggenheim, an NEA grant, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Prize, Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, Pen Faulkner finalist, and most recently the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

This event is free and open to all. Light refreshments will be served. With wonderful Friends like these, the authors keep coming at Crowell Public Library!