Georgia: A Musical Portrait Of Georgia O’Keeffe, performed Sept. 5 as a joint fundraiser for Theatre in the Park (http://www.theatreinthepark.com/) and The Frankie Lemmon School (http://home.nc.rr.com/fls/), is California opera singer, composer, lyricist, and librettist Karen Melander-Magoon’s stirring musical tribute to the trailblazing life and art of Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986). Melander-Magoon vividly portrayed O’Keeffe, from her formative years until the final years of her long and eventful life, thrilling the TIP audience with her soaring arias and enchanting them with the poetic lyrics encapsulating the painter’s evolution into one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century.
Pianist Siegried Tepper artfully accompanied Melander-Magoon as she vividly reenacted the triumphs and tragedies of O’Keefe’s life. Tepper performed Frank Fanning’s piano arrangements with brio.
Like the premium wines and cheeses provided at intermission and after the show, Karen Melander-Magoon’s Georgia is tart and sweet and satisfying. These tasty products of Karen and Orville Magoon’s Guenoc and Langtry Estate Vineyards and Winery in Middletown, California provided an appropriate beverage for a hearty toast to Georgia O’Keeffe, an American original famous for incorporating bleached bones from her adopted home in the Southwest into her unforgettable paintings.
Editor’s Note: Theatre in the Park will present The Faraway Nearby, playwright John Murrell’s poetic drama about the final decades of Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, from Sept. 19 to Oct. 5.
