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CMU composer gives new life to opera City Workers in Love
Neil Weisensel brings comedic work to a new generation
Neil Weisensel, CMU Associate Professor of Music and composer of the comic opera City Workers in Love.
Construction workers singing opera? It's a combination likely to elicit a double take, but it's at the heart of the 1992 comic opera City Workers in Love.
Composed by CMU Associate Professor of Music Neil Weisensel with a libretto by the late Michael Cavanagh, the one-act comic opera tells the story of a street repair crew and their pursuits of love and public service during a typical day.
When an innocent prank backfires, the crew must overcome bureaucratic and romantic obstacles to find true municipal happiness.
The 60-minute opera debuted at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival in 1992 and has since been performed across Canada and the United States. Last year, Weisensel brought the music back into the studio, recording a selection of arias with a new generation of performers.
Weisensel is hosting an evening of song—half concert, half listening party—to celebrate the release of the City Workers in Love album on streaming platforms. The event will take place Friday, September 25 at 7:00 PM in the Laudamus Auditorium in CMU's Assiniboine Castle (500 Shaftesbury Blvd.). Admission is free and all are welcome to attend.
The album includes six songs from City Workers in Love and a bonus track from Weisensel and Cavanagh's second opera, The Bachelor Farmers of the Apocalypse (1993). Weisensel will present the album through a mix of live and recorded performances.
Weisensel will perform the live excerpts on piano alongside professional singers and CMU alumni Joanna Loepp Thiessen (CMU '22) and Nolan Kehler (CMU '17), who are featured on the recording along with CMU Assistant Professor of Music Matthew Pauls.
"I'm so excited to be able to share this music, that I composed so many years ago, with the next generation of young singers," Weisensel says. "I am lucky to know a lot of great young singers in Winnipeg who did such a fabulous job on the recordings, as everyone who listens to the City Workers in Love album on their favourite streaming service will attest to."
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