Seeking New Friends for Penn's

Tucked into the quaint spaces along Delaware Street in Old New Castle is the fantastic coffee spot/artisan shop/tranquil hangout with yummy nosh, Trader's Cove at Penn's Place. Run by Matthew & Esther Lovlie (longtime Delaware arts & commerce supporters), it's become a destination for your day in Old New Castle "must-stops."  It's a friendly and welcoming, not only housing a coffee and wine garden (that sold me, right there) with a menu of local and organic selections, but also providing a showcase for local artists' works and products you can't always find anywhere else.  Some of their current "tenants": artist Donna Teleis, jewelry by Sami Campbell and Sarah Rose Originals, the Snicker Ditch Trunk Company, and candles from Originals by Kate.

Now, Penn's Place is looking to expand their internal neighborhood, offering retail/office space.  For info or a tour, contact Matthew Lovlie at 302.593.5908 or malovlie@gmail.com.  Or, just go down for a cuppa joe or a nice glass of malbec, wander through and enjoy the local talent! Tell Matthew I sent you.

See http://pennsplace.net.

A Weill’d ride at the REP’s Threepenny Opera

Matthew Earnest has created an updated version of Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill’s production of the Dreigroschenoper which opened in Berlin almost exactly 200 years after its model, John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera opened in London in 1728. Since Brecht and Weill updated the Eighteenth Century ballad opera, why shouldn’t we update the 1928 version? The times they are a-changin’ as that fan of the songs once said.

Earnest used the authorized translation (Robert David MacDonald for the dialogue and Jeremy Sams for the lyrics), but perhaps allowed a bit of colorful interjection into the script. That color fit in and didn’t seem to make anyone in Friday’s audience bolt for the door, but note that your ten-year-old may add a few undesirable words to their vocabulary should you take them to see the show.

The musicians were hidden backstage – against Berthold Brecht’s desires but perhaps for the best with the sound in the Wilhemina Press Thompson Theatre. Ryan Touhey must have had a way of seeing the singers, though, because the orchestra was spot on with musical cues and attacks.


The set and costumes by Mathew LeFebvre deserve special commendation as they invoked the simplicity of the ‘poor’ and the exaggeration of the ‘wealthy’ villains whom we get to know so well. The projected titles were quite dramatic and the darkened set with its red and brown overtones gave the opening the feeling that they had discovered Jenny on a dark and abandoned street. Elizabeth Heflin (Jenny) belted the beloved Mack the Knife song with gritty harshness which got us into the underworld mood. Lovely touches like a mini-harpsichord for the wedding in the barn, a bathtub on a conveyor belt for Jenny’s Solomon song, a carousel horse bearing a Beefeater, a shower-sized jail cell and a revolving barn door added that farcical touch.


Deena Burke (Polly) has quite a beautiful voice and Mic Matarrese had the powerful baritone for the wicked MacHeath. Erin Partin (Lucy Brown) has that comic edge and her voice blended beautifully with Burke’s in the Jealousy Duet. Kathleen Pirkl-Tague was a broadly comic Mrs. Peachum who helped us laugh at the futility of life.


The songs are bawdy and their message of futility and injustice apply to any society at any time. Brecht and Weill’s protest of the fascist and bankrupt Germany of 1928 with foreign war service as the only way out for the downtrodden is a perfect vehicle to protest the unjust distribution of wealth in the United States of 2013.


Leave your ten-year-old with a babysitter, but take your grandmother. She understands more of this history than you do. Show continues until February 2, 2013 at the Roselle Center for the Arts in Newark.



See www.udel.edu/arts.

Mėlomanie Plays to a Packed House….at the Library

Music in a library? What better way to introduce the public to musical instruments like the gamba, baroque flute and baroque violin? The Friends of the Newark Free Library are devoted to making their library a community education center and they attracted quite a crowd for the concert by Mėlomanie. Over 90 people came to hear the Sunday afternoon concert – many of them brought children.

The group started the concert by playing the first part of La Piemontaise from Les Nations by François Couperin. The room, which has almost no echo or reverberation, was a great venue for the harpsichord, gamba and baroque flute and baroque violin. Each instrument could be heard distinctly, yet the blends of harmony were quite good. Christof Richter’s baroque violin and Eve Friedman’s baroque flute kept a very even match, especially in the Gravement – vivement et marquee. In the Seconde Air, the harpsichord’s lute stop sounded beautiful – and the entire ensemble went from forte to piano in a very natural and easy way to recreate the baroque dynamics.

The concert included two pieces by contemporary composers. The first was an excerpted verision of Dreams (2013) by Sergio Roberto de Oliveira played by Kim Reighley on modern flute and Doug McNames on cello. Oliveira was trying to depict the mysterious world of dreams in a series of musical vignettes. McNames and Reighley managed to hold a strict rhythmic unity – coming in absolutely together after rests and managing the exact same tone qualities on two-note slurs. The entire piece will be premiered on January 19 at Grace United Methodist Church in Wilmington.

The other contemporary piece was Fantaisie Mėlomanie by Roberto Pace which he had written for Mėlomanie in 2009. The clarity of the acoustics really brought out the individual voices in the piece. The groupings of cello, gamba and violin as well as the two modern flutes and violin were well-balanced and beautifully voiced.

The concert ended with the second part of La Piemontaise, the dances. The delicate sounds of the Allemande and the two Courantes were a great introduction to the very low and plaintive sounds of the gamba and low harpsichord notes in the Sarabande. The final Rondeau was a cheerful end to a short and fun concert.


The Friends of the Newark Free Library and Pam Nelson have really given something special to the community when they provide unusual music in a friendly and informal setting.



See www.melomanie.org