The Queen's Hall Au­di­to­ri­um in St Ann's will once more be filled to the brim with the lush, dra­mat­ic sounds of opera as the Clas­si­cal Mu­sic De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion of T&T (CMDFTT) hosts its sec­ond an­nu­al T&T Opera Fes­ti­val from Ju­ly 1-10.

The fes­ti­val will fea­ture sev­er­al op­por­tu­ni­ties for the peo­ple of T&T to en­gage, in­ter­act, hear and be in­tro­duced to the won­der­ful world of cos­tume, dra­ma, mu­sic and, of course, soar­ing opera singing.

As a spe­cial land­mark oc­ca­sion in 2016, the CMDFTT will be re­launched with the more in­clu­sive and dis­tinc­tive ti­tle of Pi­coplat Mu­sic De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion–a re­brand­ing ef­fort to widen the foun­da­tion's scope to the de­vel­op­ment of mu­si­cal ed­u­ca­tion with­in all gen­res.

The pi­coplat, one of the Caribbean's dis­tinc­tive avian cit­i­zens, was cho­sen for its prized vir­tu­osic bird call and gold­en beak– a sym­bol of the in­nate tal­ent and beau­ty of our na­tion's mu­si­cal abil­i­ties. The grand launch of the Pi­coplat Mu­sic De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion will take place at the Opera Fes­ti­val Gala on Ju­ly 1.

The main high­light of the T&T Opera Fes­ti­val will be the ris­ing opera stars of The Young Artist Col­lec­tive, formed un­der the CMDFTT, who will thrill au­di­ences in a unique pro­duc­tion of Of­fen­bach's vivid­ly en­gag­ing opera Tales of Hoff­mann. The opera will be di­rect­ed by not­ed dra­maturge Helmer Hilwig with mu­si­cal di­rec­tion by June Nathaniel.

The Tales of Hoff­mann, an opera by Jacques Of­fen­bach, is a world­wide favourite with opera go­ers who fol­low the tri­umphs and loss­es of the artiste Hoff­mann as he re­counts the three great loves of his life in all their beau­ty and tragedy.

High­lights of this opera in­clude the vo­cal py­rotech­nics of the Doll Song and the duet Belle nu­it, � nu­it d'amour, con­sid­ered to con­tain one of the world's most pop­u­lar melodies.

The opera opens and clos­es with scenes of Hoff­mann's ob­ses­sion with Stel­la, an opera singer. In be­tween are vi­sions of his pas­sions for three oth­er women of his past and all the de­li­cious sto­ries that un­fold. Hoff­mann will be played by Raguel Gabriel, a T&T tenor who will be re­turn­ing to Trinidad from his stud­ies at the Stel­la Adler Stu­dio of Act­ing in New York City, USA.

T&T Opera Fes­ti­val 2016 will al­so fea­ture the launch of 12 Songs of the Is­lands–a new­ly com­mis­sioned Caribbean song col­lec­tion by Trinida­di­an com­pos­er Do­minique Le­Gendre. Fol­low­ing in the well-es­tab­lished tra­di­tion of set­ting tra­di­tion­al folk songs and African-Amer­i­can spir­i­tu­als for clas­si­cal so­lo per­for­mance, the CMDFTT has un­der­tak­en to com­mis­sion a col­lec­tion of Caribbean songs and po­ems new­ly arranged for pi­ano and voice by a tal­ent­ed home grown com­pos­er.

Al­so hap­pen­ing dur­ing the fes­ti­val will be vo­cal mas­ter­class­es for se­mi-pro­fes­sion­al singers, and the Fourth An­nu­al Mu­sic Com­pe­ti­tion where our na­tion's best young singers will per­form two songs each for an in­ter­na­tion­al pan­el of judges, in a bid to win a $30,000 grand prize for con­tin­u­ing study in voice and vo­cal stud­ies.

The T&T Opera Fes­ti­val is a na­tion­wide event. This year, new op­por­tu­ni­ties have been cre­at­ed to make the fes­ti­val more ac­ces­si­ble to every­one, in­clud­ing sev­er­al events, which will be free to the pub­lic. A sig­na­ture Opera Lime pro­mo­tion (hash­tag: #Op­er­aL­ime) will al­low the so­cial-me­dia savvy of the youth pop­u­la­tion a chance to win a pair of four gen­er­al ad­mis­sion tick­ets to the #Op­er­aL­ime evening, specif­i­cal­ly placed in the pro­gramme for lo­cals who will be at­tend­ing the opera for the first time and for any young or young-at-heart opera-lov­ing en­thu­si­asts.

The T&T Opera Fes­ti­val along with oth­er de­vel­op­men­tal out­reach events, is pre­sent­ed with the gen­er­ous sup­port of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T, the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts and un­der the es­teemed pa­tron­age of Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly.

For more in­for­ma­tion on the T&T Opera Fes­ti­val 2016 vis­it: http://www.tt­op­er­afest.com/, email: tt­op­er­afest@gmail.com, or call: 632-2548

The T&T Opera Fes­ti­val High­lights

�2 Gala Red Car­pet Open­ing Night–Ju­ly 1

�2 Fourth An­nu­al Mu­sic Com­pe­ti­tion–Ju­ly 2

�2 Mati­nee Per­for­mance, Tales of Hoff­mann–Ju­ly 3

�2 Eid ul fitr Mati­nee Kids Spe­cial, Tales of Hoff­mann–Ju­ly 6

�2 One Child Free per Adult Tick­et

�2 #Op­er­aL­ime Spe­cial Event, Tales of Hoff­mann–Ju­ly 8

�2 De­but: Twelve Songs of the Is­lands, by Do­minique Le­Gendre –Ju­ly 9

�2 Clos­ing Night Mati­nee Per­for­mance, Tales of Hoff­mann

–Ju­ly 10

TALES OF HOFF­MAN, CAST HIGH­LIGHTS

�2 Hoff­mann–Raguel Gabriel, tenor,

Stel­la Adler Stu­dio of Act­ing NYC

�2 Lin­dorf–Justin Welsh, bari­tone,

Win­ner Kurt Weill Com­pe­ti­tion NYC

�2 An­to­nia–Cara Adams, so­pra­no,

Pa­cif­ic Opera Vic­to­ria Young Artist

�2 Niklaus–Mae­gan Pol­lon­ais, mez­zo-so­pra­no, Post Grad­u­ate Stu­dent Ball State Uni­ver­si­ty

�2 Frantz–Ro­ry Wal­lace, tenor,

Post Grad­u­ate Stu­dent Ball State Uni­ver­si­ty

�2 Giuli­et­ta–Stephanie Na­hous, so­pra­no,

Alum­nus Boston Uni­ver­si­ty (vo­cal mi­nor)

�2 Olympia–Na­talia Dop­well, so­pra­no,

Alum­nus Man­hat­tan School of Mu­sic