Music @ Madewood, a spring opera festival held at Madewood Plantation House, a National Historic Landmark outside Napoleonville, Louisiana (between New Orleans and Baton Rouge) announces it 2008 schedule of performances: a duo of topsy-turvy operatic worlds envisioned by two very different composers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Christoph Willibald Gluck and Jacques Offenbach.

Saturday, May 24 at 6 p.m., Gluck's L'ile de Merlin, ou le monde en renverse, which received its US premiere in 2007 at the Spoleto festival in Charleston, will be presented in Rosedale Theatre on the grounds of Madewood, with dinner following in the mansion.  The production is presented in association with the New Orleans Opera Association and conducted by its General and Artistic Director, Robert Lyall. 

On Sunday, May 25 at 3 p.m., Madewood's Future Virtuosos young aritsts program, under the direction of John Keene of LSU Opera, will present Offenbach's L'ile de Tulipatan, ou le monde en renverse, in the ballroom of Madewood.

Music @ Madewood is the successor to the Madewood Arts Festival, which presented operas at the country estate from 1974-1983. Singers such as Paul Plishka, Ruth Falcon, Michael Devlin, Anthony Laciura, Linda Zoghby and English National Opera principals Sarah Walker, Eileen Hannan and Penelope MacKay, presented concerts and performed in works such as Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Rossini’s L’ocasione fa il ladro, von Suppe’s Die Schone Galatea, Pergolesi’s The Music Master, Milhaud’s Operas Minutes, Walton’s Façade, Mozart’s Bastien and Bastienne and Weber’s Abu Hassan.

Last year’s production of Menotti’s The Medium, which featured Sarah Jane McMahon as Monica and Gwendolyn Jones as Madame Flora, was nominated for Most Creative Opera Production in the New Orleans Classical Music Awards.

Both operas will be sung in English. L’ile de Merlin will be set in the Louisiana Bayou country in a new translation by festival director Keith Marshall. It will be presented in Rosedale Theatre, a renovated farmhouse on the grounds that features a full prosenium-arch stage and orchestra pit, as well as an opera library and archives open to the public.

There will be motorcoach service from New Orleans for L'ile de Merlin, with appetizers and an introduction to the opera on board.

Tickets for the Opera's will be available April 2, 2008 through the New Orleans Opera's box office,
Tel: 504-529-2278.  Gluck's L'ile de Merlin, ou le monde en renverse: $150, $98 or $78 and includes dinner.   Offenbach's L'ile de Tulipatan, ou le monde en renverse: Free admittance, reservations are required, lunch for a nominal fee will be available from 12 noon to 2:30pm.

Some rooms may be available at Madewood, however, you might contact one of the following businesses for overnight accommodations --

Highway 70, Belle Rose, LA 70341, Dennis Landry 985-252-8700 CajunCabinsOnline.com

149 South Bay Rd., Pierre Part, LA 70339
ledock@cox.net --337-233-6682 0r 225-266-0799

6161 Hwy. 1 S, Belle Rose, LA 70341, Jamelia "Jimmie" Dugas
jimmie@seventyandone.com 985-369-7020 SeventyAndOne.com

The Best Western Plantation Inn,

2179 Hwy. 70, Donaldsonville, La. 70346, 225-746-9050

404Claiborne St., Donaldsonville, La. 70346, 225-473-1232

602 Railroad Ave, Donaldsonville, La. 70346, 225-474-5050 Or 225-717-1069 www.Cabahanosse.com

701 West 10th St., Donaldsonville, La. 70346, 225-473-3146

117 Railroad Ave, Donaldsonville, La. 70346  225-473-1876 or 225-647-0455

Danny Patel, P.O. Box 5644, Thibodaux, LA 70302  --985-448-2411

Dennis & Denny Soignier, 317 St. Mary St., Thibodaux , LA 70301 --985-446-3029  www.bbonline.com/la/georgehouse

Jewel Durocher, 1241 Hwy 20, Thibodaux, LA 70301 -- 985-633-2562

Frank & Joyce Naquin, 1146 West Camellia Dr., Thibodaux, LA 70301  --985-446-6977  --www.geocities.com/naquinsbb

Zeb Mayhew, 3645 Hwy 18, Vacherie, LA 70090  --1-800-442-5539  www.OakAlleyPlantation.com

Cindy Landeche, 400 East First Street , Thibodaux, LA 70301 --985-446-0561

Malcolm Hodnett, 322 East Second Street, Thibodaux, LA 70301   --985-447-4738

Cherie LeCompte, 955 Bayou Road, Thibodaux, LA 70301  --985-223-1190

Christine Brunet, 120 Bobcat Lane, Thibodaux, LA 70301 --985 448 0921