Drake Prof’s Opera Performed

Folks in Des Moines will see a different side of Drake contracts prof Cathy Lesser Mansfield, when music from her opera The Sparks Fly Upward is performed by the Des Moines Choral Society and a string quartet on Saturday, May 13.  Mansfield’s opera (the title is from Job 5:7, “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward”) centers on the experiences of a Jewish family fleeing the Holocaust.

Mansfield wrote the first version of the piece while still in high school, and it earned a scholarship to the Cincinnati Conservatory, before getting detoured to NYU and law school.  The Des Moines performance is part of a concert honoring mothers.

[Frank Snyder]