Happy Birthday to Puccini Society Founder Bettie Francis

Puccini Friends:  How exciting to begin our new season with a tribute to our founder, Bettie Francis by a big crowd of well wishers!  Our singer, Andrew Simpson, made his Puccini Society debut with a beautiful program of bass songs and arias.  Brian Bentley is always a wonderful collaborator.  Andrew’s mom, Tina, has been a member of our group for some time and we were delighted to have Andrew’s whole family attend yesterday. We look forward to following Andrew’s opera career with great interest.  I’m sure his mom will keep us informed. 

Sue Prideaux and her daughter Wendy Kumpf offered us a warm welcome into their beautiful home.  We appreciate their generous hospitality.

It always takes an efficient committee to organize one of our events and we have just the committee that does that well!  Patsy and Bob Brooks were key to this event; choosing Crescendo Catering and planning the menu,  providing and serving wine, and furnishing additional seating for this large group. Patsy also insured we had the lovely cake to celebrate Bettie’s 90th birthday.  Our sincere “bravi!” to you both!!

Jana sends our invitations and takes reservations each time and takes care of all the treasurer’s duties.  She is certainly an essential member of the team.  I want to mention how nice it is to have so many pay in advance as it makes check-in run smoothly and quickly.  Thanks to all and paying by credit card is very easy and convenient;  thanks Jana for making this possible.  

Our membership renewals are coming in well and I urge everyone to be sure they have taken care of renewing.  Thanks to Judy and Martin who always make renewing convenient and timely.  Marion always arranges for parkers, whom we have come to rely on.  We all appreciate this service.

I look forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming fall events.

Marilyn Halla

Schedule for fall:

Oct. 23; St. Matthew’s Cathedral Arts Series will present Mary Dibbern with Courtney Maina, soprano and Christopher Leach, tenor, in Songs of Mary Howe.  These will be taken from their newly released CD, Songs by Mary Howe, which The Puccini Society helped underwrite.  We will be at the Collora Piano Studio.

Nov.19; Stephen Dubberly will present two outstanding young singers and will also report on the Craft’s Opera in Concert program in Italy, which we help sponsor.  Location TBA.

Dec. 3; Joint program with Voces Intimea (art song organization), Christian Bester, General Director.  We will hear all of Puccini’s  songs which will be narrated by Stephen Dubberly and held at the home of Enika and Richard Schulze.