ENDACOTT SOCIETY
January 2005
Retired Faculty and Staff of the University of Kansas
www.ukans.edu/~emeritus
SCHEDULED EVENTS—January 2005
All activities meet at the Adams Alumni Center unless otherwise
noted.
SNOW POLICY REMINDER—There will
be no meeting on Wednesday morning if the Lawrence Public Schools are closed
due to bad weather. This will directly affect the Computer Study Group,
Gardening Seminar, Ten O’clock Scholars, and the Music Group. KANU, KLWN, and
Channel 6 as well as the KU Alumni Center office will be informed. All other
interest groups should develop their own policies. The Executive Committee
Afternoon Lecture Series—Rita Haugh (843-7613),
Megan Schoeck
(mschoeck@sunflower.com & 841-6008), and Howard O’Connor
(843-1884)
January 13 at 2:30—John and Karen
Pendleton of Pendleton Farms will be our speakers, and will discuss the
problems of operating a small farm successfully. The line between small farms
and gardens should be of interest to our Garden Group.
Bill Hambleton
(wwhamble@ku.edu & 843-2508) is in charge of programs for the Afternoon
Lecture Series.
Armchair
Travel—Stitt Robinson (wsrobin@ku.edu &
843-1499)
January
27—Carol
Shankel will take us to China. From her many trips, she will select slides representing
various areas of the country. Coffee and tea at 2:00; program at 2:30.
Card
and Game Theory—Ruth Culvahouse (842-0626 & jwcul@ku.edu)
January 20 at 1:30—The sign-up sheet will be
available during Coffee on Wednesday mornings. Any questions should be
referred to
Cinema Studies—Grant Goodman (plim@ku.edu & 841-1066) and Fred Madaus
(fmadaus@ku.edu & 841-4939)
January 18 at 2:00—Cinema
Studies will present Bette Davis in The Little Foxes. Coffee and other beverages are available at
1:45. Everyone is welcome.
Computer Study Group—Oliver Phillips
(ophil@ku.edu & 842-1020)
January 5 at 9:00—Pat Kindle: EBay,
Nuts and Bolts
January 12 at 9:00—Amy Barnes, What’s New
at the Senior Center
January 19 at 9:00—Bret Garland,
Lawrence-Journal World, Adobe Photoshop
January 26 at 9:00—TBA
Domestic Public Policy Study Group—Jim Drury
(jdrury@ku.edu & 842-3308) and John Poertner
(jpoertner@sunflower.com & 749-2599)
January 3 at 3:30—Program TBA.
Drama Study Group—Arnold Weiss
(ahweiss@ku.edu & 842-5502)
January 14 at
1:30 in the Music Room. New
play to be undertaken TBA. Inquiries as to further details will be entertained
(after decent interval, please) by Arnold Weiss via phone or e-mail;
announcement will also be made at Ten O'clock Scholar gatherings on December 29
and January 5 and 12.
Foreign
Policy Study—Margo
Gordon (msgordon@ku.edu & 842-1848)
January l0
at 3:30—Although
the study books will not likely be here by that time, we will know the general
subjects in the new book, so will have a planning meeting, to determine who will
be responsible for which subjects. We will also consider if we want to get
serious about the "voting" provided for in the book, and how we
prefer to have the sessions conducted. Hope to see you then.
Gardening—Arno Knapper (knapper@ku.edu & 312-9422) and Dick
Shiefelbusch (843
5869)
January 5, 12, 19, & 26 at 9:00.
Great Books Study Group—Mary Boyden (843-8897)
In
January we are starting a new series of readings on "Clashes of
Culture".
January 12 at 1:45. Mary Boyden will lead the discussion of Deep Play:
Notes on the Balinese Cockfight by Clifford Geertz.
Music—Arno Knapper (knapper@ku.edu &
312-9422)
January 5, 12, 19, & 26 at 9:00—in the Music
Room immediately following Coffee.
Opera
Study—Jim
Seaver (jseaver@ku.edu & 843-4081) and Al Sellen
(jnalsellen@aol.com & 841-7432)
January
21 at 1:30—Our third presentation of the later operas of Giacomo Puccini—Il
Trittico: Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi. The opera,
which consists of three short operas, was entitled by Puccini Il Trittico
(The Triptych). It contains Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni
Schicchi. These three operas make for a very diversified three hours of
musical theater, although they are seldom performed together anymore. Il
Tabarro has been described as a "Grand Guignol," a horror opera
somewhat resembling Tosca in its verismo style and in its brutality
about the life of workers on the barges of the Seine River. Suor Angelica may
be described as suicide in the cloisters of a nunnery, with a possible happy ending.
Gianni Schicchi is the only comic opera Puccini ever wrote; it contains
the soprano aria "O mio babbino caro," which is one of the most
popular of Puccini's arias, especially now that it is being heard on TV
advertisements.
When
the three operas are not presented together, Il Tabarro is often heard
combined with Pagliacci or Cavalleria Rusticana. We recently saw Gianni
Schicchi paired with Richard Strauss's Salome in Denver. Suor
Angelica, the least popular of the operas of Il Trittico, is seldom
performed nowadays. Il Trittico had its successful world premiere on 14
December 1918 with superb casts, including Claudia Muzio in Il Tabarro,
Geraldine Farrar as Suor Angelica, and Giuseppe de Luca as Gianni Schicchi.
Our
telecast comes from a performance at La Scala, Milan, in 1983, with the
orchestra and chorus of La Scala conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzini. The fine
Italian baritone Piero Cappuccilli will be featured, along with soprano Sylvia
Sass in Il Tabarro. The English soprano Rosalind Plowright will portray
the unhappy Suor Angelica, and the Spanish baritone Juan Pons will be our
Gianni Schicchi.
The
running time of Il Trittico will be two hours and forty minutes. We will
have an intermission after Suor Angelica, at which time coffee, tea, and
cookies will be served.
(The
last opera of the year will be Turandot on March 4.)
Metropolitan
Opera Radio—Al
Sellen
(jnalsellen@aol.com & 841-7432)
We resume these radio broadcasts that have fine
reception thanks to Vic and Mary Wallace. Come to their home, 1509
Massachusetts, and park in the church parking lot next door. The time is 12:30
p.m. each Saturday.
January 8: Otello by Verdi
January 15: The Tales of Hoffmann by
Offenbach
January 22: Aida by Verdi
January 29: Turandot by Puccini
Ten O’clock Scholars AKA Wednesday Coffee/Business Meeting—Margery Lamb
(marjlamb@earthlink.net & 749-4647)
January 5, 12, 19, & 26
FYI:
· ORAL HISTORY
PROJECT
Thanks to the generous financial support of the KU Endowment
Association through the Grace Medes Fund, and other support from the KU Alumni
Association, the Oral History Committee is able to continue compiling histories
of retired KU faculty and staff. Because more money was needed to complete this
year’s work, Dale Seuferling, President of the KU Endowment Association made a
one-time contribution available to us. We appreciate his support. Because the
yearly amount from the Grace Medes Fund is limited, the Oral History Committee
encourages you to show support for the Oral History Project by making
contributions to the fund. Checks should be made to KU Endowment
Association/Grace Medes Fund.
· ENDACOTT SOCIETY
MEMBERSHIP LIST
Copies of the Endacott Society membership list may be obtained
from Bryan Greve at the KU Alumni Association. We will no longer include the
lists with newsletters.
· To subscribe to our
listserve, send an email to: listproc@ku.edu
Subscribe emerit-l your-name
Questions? Contact rjsmith@ku.edu
· Endacott Society
Newsletter online? Late breaking Endacott Society news? Check
www.ukans.edu/~emeritus.
Evening Lecture - Thursday,
February 3, at the usual time and place. With wine,
cheese and Arno Knapper bread before
dinner. Showing his video on education
of immigrants in Kansas will be
Ranjit Arab, who works at the University
Press of Kansas.
Pre Concert Dinner on February
26 will be at 5 p.m. in the Smith Center at Brandon Woods. Signup will be available at Ten O’clock Scholars
meetings beginning January 12. Also
reservations may be made with Grant Goodman at 841-1066. This dinner will precede the performance of Carmen
at the Leid Center the same evening.
.