Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
    Date: 2/6/01
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple   98

Editors: Photo accompanies release   Please note local interest
"DIE FLEDERMAUS" CAST PREDICTS "FUN" EVENING AT THE OPERA
     HAMMOND -- "Fun."
     The word keeps coming up in connection with the Southeastern Louisiana University
Opera-Music Theatre's upcoming production of "Die Fledermaus," Johann Strauss' classic
operetta about love, mixed-up identities   and revenge.
     Here's the premise of the plot: Dr. Falke is out to get ladies' man Eisenstein, who
abandoned him (Falke), drunk and dressed as a bat, in a public park after a costume party. When
Falke awakens, he is less than pleased -- to put it mildly -- to find himself the laughing stock of
Vienna. How "the bat" gets back at Eisenstein is a hilariously tuneful exercise in delicious
revenge.
     Graduate student Laura Tillotson, a native of Flowermound, Texas, is making her
Southeastern stage debut in the lead role of Rosalinda. While the young soprano is admittedly
not
exactly impartial, her enthusiasm for "Die Fledermaus" is infectious.
     "It's great music," she said of the production, which will run February 14-17 at
Southeastern's Pottle Music Building Auditorium. "It's a very funny story with much more
entertainment value than you are going to find in any of the movies that are out right now, I
think."
     Tillotson shares top billing in "Die Fledermaus" with another graduate student from out
of town   way out of town. Krassen Karagiozov, who plays Eisenstein, is a native of Stara
Zagora, Bulgaria. He followed his childhood friend, violinist Miroslav Hristov, to Southeastern
in 1999. 
     Karagiozov said he and Hristov, who has since graduated, "have been together through
our whole studies. He came here first and that's how I got here."
     Unlike his friend, Karagiozov's primary instrument is piano. A student of Department of 
Music and Dramatic Arts department head David Evenson, Karagiozov admits that his keyboard 
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DIE FLEDERMAUS   Add One
studies keep him busy, but says that he would like to do more singing..He made his debut last
spring in the Opera-Music Theatre's production of "Savitri."
     Like Karagiozov, Tillotson had a "friendly" introduction to Southeastern. She was
referred to Southeastern's graduate program by her teacher at the University of Northern Texas in
Denton, Laural Miller, who is a friend of her Southeastern voice professor, Scharmal Schrock.
     "She told me that Ms. Schrock would be somebody that would be very useful for me to
study with and that this might be a program that could be good for me," said Tillotson. "So, I
checked it out, came out and auditioned, and they seemed to like me as much as I liked them."
     While Southeastern's program is smaller than the music program at UNT, "I know all the
major professors and they all know me. It's very close and it's a very different feeling. It's much
more comfortable!" Tillotson said.
     Tillotson, who says she has been performing "basically since I could walk," thinks that
opera is far from  "obscure, intimidating, or inaccessible." 
     "I think it's the most accessible of the classic music art forms," she said, eloquently,
"because to me it presents real people, real human emotions. There is going to be something that
happens on the stage that anyone in the audience can identify with. Because of the comedy and
because there is so much dialogue   rather than everything being sung   it's going to be even
more accessible. And they music is just exquisite, it is gorgeous."
     "You're going to leave here wanting to go take ballroom dance lessons!" she said,
laughing.
     "Die Fledermaus" is directed by Larry Gray and produced by Scharmal Schrock. Charles
Effler will conduct the orchestra and an elaborate set has been designed by Steve Schepker with
lighting by Pete Pfeil. Martie Fellom is choreographer. 
     Tickets for "Die Fledermaus"  --  $10 general admission, $5 for senior citizens, non-SLU
students and Southeastern faculty and staff -- will be  on sale from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the
Pottle Music Building lobby, beginning February 12. They also will be available at Bayou
Booksellers in downtown Hammond and at the door. Southeastern students are admitted free
with their university I.D.
     For additional information, call the Southeastern Department of Music and Dramatic
Arts, 504-549-2184.                      
                             -SLU-
Press release available online at www.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsp01.htm