Opera ballads and folk song spoofs from the 1950s provide a balance of comedy and drama, said Julie Wieck, WSU associate professor of music.

The WSU Opera Workshop provides students with the opportunity to hone their performance abilities with opera and musical theatre, she said.

“Every fall I do a production of one-acts and scene work to give students a chance to develop character,” Wieck said.

This fall’s production, “American Opera in the 1950s,” focuses on historical pieces written by American composers.

“‘The Ballad of Baby Doe’ is based on historical characters Horace Taber and Baby Doe. We’re doing three scenes from that,” Wieck said.

“The Ballad of Baby Doe” is the first of four pieces Opera Workshop will perform. Opera Workshop will then perform Horse Opera “Sweet Betsy from Pike.”

Opera Workshop singer and graduate student Rodrigo Cortes will also use his role of Ike in the performance of “Sweet Betsy from Pike” as his master’s project.

“I’m doing the master’s project because I think music is overlooked in schools,” Cortes said.

As part of his project, Cortes and Opera Workshop will perform the one-act opera at Lincoln Middle School. He said he wants to introduce opera as a genre to the students.

“We want to give the kids a different meaning of what they think opera is,” Cortes said.

Wieck said she chose the third performance piece, “A Hand of Bridge,” for its coupling of drama with more light

hearted tones.

“Two married couples are playing bridge,” Wieck said. “What you get are internal monologues for each character and what they’re thinking. And it’s obviously not about bridge. You’ve got some drama, but there are also light moments.”

Opera Workshop will close the performance with a Voltaire-inspired satire, “Candide,” which Wieck said focuses on the belief that life is inherently good.

“It’s about the loss of innocence, in that Pangloss teaches that life is good and that everything that happens is for the good,” Wieck said.

Though Opera Workshop is composed of 17 singers, each singer does not perform in every opera.

“A couple of singers appear in some of them, and then they all appear in the finale,” Wieck said.

The finale will see the full cast come on stage to perform “Universal Good” and “Make Our Garden Grow,” both songs that Wieck said affirm the positivity of “Candide.”

“They meet life head on and come to realize that they can still thrive,” she said. “Then we’re going to have groups from all four operas sing ‘Make Our Garden Grow.’”

This show marks the Opera Workshop’s first time performing these operas for the public in length.

“We were able to do just 15 minute snapshots of these at Choral Festival and Vocal Extravaganza as a teaser,” Wieck said. “We said that if you want to see how those stories end, then come to our full production.”

Opera Workshop will perform Thursday, Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. in Bryan Hall Theatre. The performance is free and open to the public.