"Gothic Halloween" and Chamber Opera Share the Week

To open its eighth season, concertnova presents a Gothic thriller Oct. 21 and 27 at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, 719 Race. St. downtown.

The program, inspired by the tales of Edgar Allen Poe, will feature storyteller Jason Podplesky in readings from Poe’s “Mask of the Red Death” and “Cask of Amontillado” to music by André Caplet and Gyorgy Ligeti, plus commentary to “spooky” music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Bernhard Hermann, Michael Daugherty, Franz Schubert and Samuel Barber.

Shows are at 7:30 p.m. and take place on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's “The Birds,” currently playing at the Shakespeare Theater.

To make it even more fun, the audience is invited to come in costume. A cash bar will be available, and there will be a party with DJ in the lobby afterwards.

Tickets are $25, $12 for students at http://concertnova.com/tickets/ (ticket sales end one hour before the concert).

Also this week, lots of opera:

Cincinnati Chamber Opera presents the Theresienstadt Opera Project, a double bill of Hans Krása’s “Brundibár” and Viktor Ullmann’s “Der Kaiser von Atlantis,” Oct. 23, 25 and 26. The Oct. 23 performance is at 7:30 p.m. at Mayerson Jewish Community Center in Amberley Village. Oct. 25 and 26 will take place in Jarson-Kaplan Theater downtown at the Aronoff Center for the Arts at 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m., respectively.

Both operas were composed or performed at the concentration camp Theresienstadt during World War II. The children’s opera “Brundibár” was premiered in Prague in 1941, after which the cast and crew were arrested by the Nazi regime and sent to Theresienstadt, where they subsequently performed “Brundibár” over 55 times. Ullmann composed “Der Kaiser von Atlantis” at Theresienstadt, where it was rehearsed and intended for performance, but was banned by the Nazis instead. Ullmann was sent Auschwitz as punishment.

The operas will be stage directed by Omer Ben Seadia and conducted by Yael Front. Singing will be Simon Barrad, Jonathan Cooper, Alexandra Kassouf, Lauren McAllister, Shawn Mlynek, Christopher Brandon Morales, Elise Hurwitz and Ben Eglian, with a children’s chorus from the Northern Kentucky School of Music.

Admission is $20, $17 for adults and seniors. Tickets for Oct. 23 are available at http://tinyurl.com/theresienstadtopera, or call (513) 580-4440. For Oct. 25 and 26, visit http://www.cincinnatiarts.org/events, or call (513) 621-ARTS (2787).

The Theresienstadt Project is being presented in collaboration with The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education, which will present a video of footage from a Holocaust survivor before each performance. There will also be a living Holocaust survivor at the Oct. 26 matinee for a talk-back session after the performance.

Cincinnati Chamber Opera will post photos and video clips of the rehearsal process and performances on Facebook and Twitter at www.facebook.com/cincinnatichamberopera and @CincyChamberOp on Twitter with the hash tag #TheresienstadtOperaProject.

Queen City Chamber Opera presents act I of Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried” in a fully staged performance with orchestra at 8 p.m. Oct. 24 and 3 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Arts Center at Dunham Theater, 1945 Dunham Way, in Price Hill.

Presented in collaboration with the Wagner Society of Cincinnati, it will be (amazingly enough) the Cincinnati premiere of the work. “Siegfried” is part three of Wagner’s monumental cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” To be sung in German with English surtitles, it will also be the first production in the world using the recently published critical edition of the vocal score.

Starring as Siegfried will be heldentenor Matt Tschimperle, with tenor M. Andrew Jones as Mime and bass Timothy J. Bruno as the Wanderer. All are graduates of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. They will perform with a 40-piece professional orchestra led by conductor/Queen City Chamber Opera founder Isaac Selya. Stage director is James Slouffman. Set design is by Dan Mazzone, lighting design by Sally Stewart. Tickets are $10-$30 at http://siegfried.brownpapertickets.com/