Ever since Brian Asher Alhadeff became the Lompoc Pops Orchestra’s artistic director, the conductor well versed in classical music and opera has tried to sneak classical repertoire past the board of directors into the orchestra’s season programming.
Modeled after the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Lompoc Pops performs exclusively American orchestral music, Alhadeff explained, and any nods to classical music were kindly rebuffed.
“One of the things that makes Lompoc special is it is one of the only cities in the United States that has a professional, dedicated pops orchestra,” he said. “The Lompoc Pops Orchestra is 100 percent dedicated for only pops music, and so you’re going to see that in our programming.”
For the Lompoc Pops’ season-closing Pops Extravaganza concert on June 18, the program is packed with well-known works from American film and Broadway, as usual, but Alhadeff did get to slip one of the most iconic works of classical opera in the lineup.
Guest soloist and coluratura soprano Alba Franco-Cancel will perform an aria from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, Alhadeff explained.
“If you were to Google ‘Queen of the Night’ aria, or ‘Der Holle Rache,’ and then listen to it, you’ll be like, ‘Oh wow, that’s the most famous aria ever written,” Alhadeff said. “The reason why [it’s programmed for the Lompoc Pops] is two reasons: First of all, it represents popular classical music, but secondly it gives us an opportunity to preview The Magic Flute.”
Franco-Cancel, who lives in Atascadero, works as a resident artist with Opera SLO, which Alhadeff is the artistic director of as well. She will perform the role of the “Queen of the Night” in Opera SLO’s performance of The Magic Flute in July.
The famous aria requires the highest notes possible in the soprano range, and Franco-Cancel is just the artist to deliver the performance.
“She is literally in the stratosphere,” Alhadeff said. “There’s only a handful of people in the world that can really nail that aria as it was written to be, in a truly professional experience. … And we happen to be lucky enough to have one of those people.”
Franco-Cancel was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where she studied classical singing for her undergraduate degree at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. She transferred to the University of Illinois for her Master of Music degree and earned a doctoral degree in voice performance from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri.
She has sung with the Lawrence Opera Theatre, the Castleton Festival, and the Pacific Opera Project, to name a few. The performance in Lompoc won’t be the first time she’s sung the iconic aria.
“This will be my fourth time singing Queen,” Franco-Cancel told the Sun. “It’s always interesting to do different productions and try to re-create what the director wants and the conductor’s taste as well.”
The aria “speaks for itself,” Fanco-Cancel said, explaining the roles involved in the dramatic moment.
“I try to bring her anger a little bit more marked,” she said, “and how desperate she is to try to convince her daughter to, you know, kill her dad. Musically, that is so well reflected with the staccatos and the very high notes; I just try to bring that a little more.”
But Franco-Cancel won’t just sing one aria with the Lompoc Pops, but also another famous showpiece by Leonard Bernstein from the operetta Candide. “Glitter and be Gay” is known for its high range and beautifully ornamented melody, and the piece fits perfectly in with the Lompoc Pops’ usual scope.
The piece also fits well with her voice, Franco-Cancel said, and offers dramatic challenges as well as musical ones.
“It’s as demanding as the ‘Queen of the Night’; I would say it’s more demanding,” she said. “It demands a lot of acting in terms of that character plays from so many emotions, and so suddenly.”
There’s another guest soloist on the program for the season-closing concert, returning pianist Matthew Harikian, who performed Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the Lompoc Pops last year.
Harikian is back again for a performance of the “Warsaw Concerto,” a piece composed in the style of Sergei Rachmaninoff by British composer Richard Addinsell for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight. The piece is also very much composed in the style of classic Hollywood, Alhadeff said, pointing to other iconic scores for films like Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon.
Alhadeff said he chose Harikian, who’s currently pursuing a graduate degree, because he’s a young pianist hungry to learn works not often performed.
“I’m very picky; I rarely hire the same musicians twice,” Alhadeff said. “I try to keep a cascading group of artists coming in so that everybody gets to experience new people, but this kid is just fantastic.”
The rest of the concert will feature the Lompoc Pops Orchestra doing what it does best, realizing beloved orchestral works composed for the stage or silver screen by American composers.
There will be selections from The King and I, highlights from Show Boat, and some military music, including the “West Point March.” There will also be a medley of John Williams, “Star Wars Through the Years,” and Alan Silvestri’s score to Back to the Future.
The Back to the Future selection by Silvestri—whose work was heard most recently in Avengers: Infinity War—is a Hollywood-level score that the Lompoc Pops’ skilled musicians are ready for, Alhadeff said.
“That’s actually going to be the most challenging piece on the entire program; it’s very difficult,” he said. “It’s a professional reduction that comes straight from the movie. It wasn’t done by an arranger to simplify it for a community orchestra or anything like that.”
While Alhadeff couldn’t resist the urge to sneak some Mozart into the Pops Extravaganza, he’s totally in his element with the bread and butter of a pops orchestra. Whether it’s the celebrated fanfare from Star Wars or the classic cinema style of the “Warsaw Concerto,” the Lompoc Pops Orchestra is there at his fingertips.
“I anticipate it will be the finest pops concert that we’ve ever had,” he said. “The orchestra is just outstanding.”
Managing Editor Joe Payne will be there for the ‘Back to the Future’ score. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 14-21, 2018.