Faculty from Glendale’s music department took the stage and performed a variety of famous musical pieces, delighting the audience who attended the recital in the auditorium on April 2 at noon.

Getting the show off to a good start was voice instructor Lori Ann Fuller, soprano, with three arias by Giacomo Puccini.

Partially translated in the program were the three arias that Fuller sang: “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta” from “La Rondine,” “O mio babbino caro” from “Gianni Schicchi” and “Quando m’en vo” from “La Boheme.”

In “Chi il bel sogno,” Fuller sang the part of a woman who had seen Doretta experience her first kiss and is looking toward her own future love life. Fuller brought the character to life through her singing – a young excited girl who wants to experience love for herself.

“Alas!/ One day a student kissed her on the lips and that kiss proved to be a revelation : It was passion!/ Mad love!/ Mad intoxication!.Oh golden dream – to be able to love like that!”

As Fuller sang “O mio babbino caro,” she played the part of a young, frustrated girl in love, desperate that her father hear her story and allow her to marry Rinucchio.

Fuller clasped her hands together and pleaded:
“Oh, God I want to die/ Daddy, have pity, have pity.” Singing about how much in love she is with Rinucchio. “I want to go to Porta Rossa and buy the ring! Yes, yes, I want to go!”

From “La Boheme,” Fuller sang the aria “Quando me’n vo.” She played the part of Musetta, singing to the crowd at Café Momus about how admired she is in an attempt to win back the attentions of Marcello.

“When I walk all alone in the street people stop and stare at me and my whole beauty everyone looks for me from head to feet.”
Lucy Nargizyan, piano instructor, then took the stage and played two classical pieces with fluidity and grace.

First she played the dramatic, moving “Prelude in G# Minor, Opus 32” by Sergei Rachmaninoff, followed Alexander Scriabin’s hypnotic “Poems, Opus 32.”
Fuller returned to the stage, accompanied by Peter Green, chair of the music department, on the piano.

Together, they performed three pieces, including “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man” by Meredith Wilson. The piece told the story of a spinster librarian who was missing out on life and romance until she met Professor Harry Hill and fell in love.

The song “If I Loved You,” from the musical “Carousel,” is about a woman who is not quite ready to confess her love to a young man who lost his job because of his attraction to her.

In “What Good Would the Moon Be?” about choosing love over fancy promises from “Street Scene” by Kurt Weill (1900-1950).

Pianist Theodora Primes then played “Nocturne in C# Minor” and the dramatic, complex “Etude in C Minor, Opus 25, No. 12,” both by Frederic Chopin. Her style of playing, once described by the late jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw, has immense power and depth. Her?command of the instrument was masterful and graceful.?

The audience showed their support with cheers and applause after every piece performed.