{"id":2455274,"date":"2020-03-02T21:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T04:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=321933"},"modified":"2020-03-02T21:45:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T04:45:00","slug":"unc-opera-theatre-brings-performance-on-womens-suffrage-to-the-wheeler-for-centennial-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/unc-opera-theatre-brings-performance-on-womens-suffrage-to-the-wheeler-for-centennial-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"UNC Opera Theatre brings performance on women\u2019s suffrage to the Wheeler for centennial celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Eve Homeyer being sworn in as the first female mayor of Aspen, 1970.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo\/Aspen Historical Society<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

On Tuesday, the University of Northern Colorado Opera Theatre will bring \u201cSongs of Suffrage: the Music of a Movement,\u201d to the Wheeler Opera House for a one-night performance in honor of 2020 as the 100th anniversary year of the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Hosted as the Aspen Historical Society\u2019s final \u201cTime Travel Tuesday\u201d for the winter season, the performance is an amended version of the historical opera \u201cMother of Us All,\u201d a political fantasy centered on scenes from the life of Susan B. Anthony and her fight for women\u2019s suffrage, which the UNC Opera Theatre is taking on tour to a handful of Colorado communities, including Aspen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a part of a nationwide celebration of the largest voting expansion in history,\u201d said Nina Gabianelli, vice president of education and programming for the Aspen Historical Society, of \u201cSongs of Suffrage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the heat of the #MeToo movement and women running for president, it fits historically and currently to present this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UNC Opera Theatre performance is the first of a host of Aspen Historical Society events and programming that will recognize the women\u2019s vote centennial and honor women leaders in the Aspen area, along with Colorado\u2019s progressive women\u2019s suffrage journey, Gabianelli said.<\/p>\n

According to an Aspen Historical Society timeline, national suffrage campaigner Carrie Lane Chapman, or Carrie Chapman Catt, gave a speech at the Wheeler Opera House in September 1893 just two months before men granted women the right to vote in Colorado \u2014 the second state to recognize women\u2019s suffrage in the U.S. and 27 years before the 19th amendment was ratified.<\/p>\n

And although Lisa Hancock, vice president and curator of collections for the Aspen Historical Society, said Aspen wasn\u2019t the most progressive city when it came to women\u2019s rights, many local organizations like the Pitkin County Library, Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, The Thrift Shop, the Aspen Historical Society, Aspen Center for Environmental Studies and more were in large part started and led by local women.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy to fall back on male-based history, but we\u2019re really focusing on women and all of the things they\u2019ve done for the area this year,\u201d Hancock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAspen is a resort town and did put many women in a situation where they were (objectified), but it also did allow some women to think they can escape traditional family structures and realize they didn\u2019t have to have traditional women\u2019s roles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrating the women\u2019s suffrage and early women\u2019s rights movement and helping people better understand its impact is exactly why the UNC Opera Theatre is partnering with organizations like the Aspen Historical Society to bring its \u201cSongs of Suffrage\u201d performance beyond Greeley.<\/p>\n

The full \u201cMother of Us All\u201d will be the theatre\u2019s main spring opera this year, but Brian Clay Luedloff, director of the UNC Opera Theatre, also felt it was important to take a condensed version on tour with the addition of songs from the suffrage movement to create more of an educational experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can go to the library and learn a lot, but you learn differently through music and theatre, which provides a visceral experience,\u201d Luedloff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese experiences where you\u2019re surrounded by the music and you see historical characters like Susan B. Anthony played using their own words are at least as important as dry, factual information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luedloff also said he hopes the tour will promote engagement in conversation around women\u2019s rights, historically and today, and in democratic participation in general. Since the UNC performance falls on Super Tuesday, locals will be able to purchase two tickets for $10 the day of the opera with their \u201cI Voted\u201d sticker.<\/p>\n

Grace Peck, a UNC graduate assistant and student who will be playing the role of Anne in \u201cSongs of Suffrage\u201d \u2014 a role she described as Susan B. Anthony\u2019s hype woman \u2014 expressed similar thoughts to Luedloff about the UNC Opera Theatre\u2019s tour and its importance.<\/p>\n

After two months of research for and rehearsal of the performance, she hopes the UNC Opera Theatre tour will help people better appreciate and reflect on the rights they have today through music.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to remember it was not so long ago that women couldn\u2019t vote. It\u2019s a history that\u2019s not so far away,\u201d Peck said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people come to enjoy the singing and beautiful music, but also to take the opportunity to re-educate and educate themselves on suffrage and realize how long and hard the fight was.\u201d<\/p>\n

mvincent@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eve Homeyer being sworn in as the first female mayor of Aspen, 1970.Courtesy photo\/Aspen Historical Society On Tuesday, the University of Northern Colorado Opera Theatre will bring \u201cSongs of Suffrage: the Music of a Movement,\u201d to the Wheeler Opera House for a one-night performance in honor of 2020 as the 100th anniversary year of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 12:47:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}