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This concert combines vocal soloists and instrumentalists of all ages, as they celebrate the many cultural backgrounds in the great Central Valley and beyond, while telling personal stories about the relevance of the music and languages in their own lives.

Hansel and Gretel, the opera, is based on the beloved fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. Hungry and bored, Hansel and Gretel dance and sing instead of doing their chores. Their angry mother sends them into the enchanted forest to search for food to eat, and so begins a great adventure…they encounter the magical Sandman and Dew Fairy, and stumble upon a mysterious, edible house, which turns out to be inhabited by a terrifying, child-eating Witch! Will Hansel and Gretel escape with their lives, or will they be cooked and eaten? Spoiler Alert! – They live happily ever after…but the witch doesn’t! Opera Modesto’s magical production is filled with beautiful tunes, great voices and joyful fun for the entire family (plus a few scary moments with the Witch)! Sung in English, Hansel and Gretel is a treat for the entire family.

Verdi’s Falstaff is often called the greatest operatic comedy ever composed and is based primarily on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. This heartwarming comedy tells of the knight Sir John Falstaff who has fallen on hard times and schemes to get his hands on some cash by romancing two wealthy wives of Windsor – Alice Ford and Meg Page. However, when these best friends find out that he has sent them both an identical love letter, they decide to teach Falstaff a lesson! After plots and counterplots, confusion, disguises, deception, and a dunking in the River Thames by way of a laundry basket, the entire company agrees that the whole world may be nothing but a jest filled with jesters, but he who laughs last, laughs best! Sung in Italian, with English supertitles.