April
4 , 2003
“Songs
to Remember” Honors Tenor Jan Kiepura April 6
| 
Jan
Kiepura and Marta Eggerth in a 1944 performance of The Merry
Widow at New York City’s Majestic Theater |
Local
soprano Dianne Smith, tenor Peter Shea, and pianist Nadine Shank
will perform “Songs to Remember,” a program of songs
from operas, operettas, and films featuring internationally acclaimed
Polish tenor Jan Kiepura (1902–1966) and his wife, Marta
Eggerth, Sunday, April 6. The program, which celebrates the one
hundredth anniversary of Kiepura’s birth, will be held at
3 pm in Pratt Hall’s McCullough Auditorium.
Kiepura appeared in
nearly every important opera house in the world, including Covent
Garden, the Paris Opéra, La Scala, the Opéra-Comique,
the Chicago Opera, the Berlin State Opera, the Teatro Colón,
and the Metroplitan Opera. He also made twenty-three films between
1932 and 1952. From the mid-1940s, he specialized in operetta,
partnering with his wife and forming a company for productions
of Lehar’s The Merry Widow, which took Broadway
by storm and toured the United States and Europe. Eggerth, who
is still singing and teaching at the age of ninety, will attend
the MHC performance with her son, concert pianist Marjan Kiepura.
“Songs to Remember” was organized by Carolyn C. Topor
’58, president of the New England chapter of the Kosciuszko
Foundation, which promotes American understanding of Polish culture
and history and supports educational and cultural exchanges between
the United States and Poland. A lunch preceding the concert will
honor New England recipients of foundation scholarships supporting
those pursuing Polish studies, year abroad, and graduate and postgraduate
research in Poland and the United States.
Past MHC recipients of a foundation scholarship for summer study
in Krakow include Dawn E. Lavallee ’02 and Mary Beth Topor
Daniel ’82, now an MHC trustee.
Concert tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, and free
to all students with college I.D. For more information, call (413)
283-8032 or 532-1546.
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3,197
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