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WC’s Catherine Roma Continues to Break New Musical Ground

Emerita Prof's 3 Prison Choirs Are Performing in Beethoven Opera Dr. Catherine Roma’s music ministry with the incarcerated reached a new apex with this month’s performance of Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio, in New York City, as her three prison choirs in Ohio are featured in the production — albeit from a distance. Roma is a professor of music emerita from Wilmington College, where she taught for some 21 years until her retirement in 2014. Retirement is a relative term since she continues to be involved with directing innovative choral groups, including a trio of prison choirs: Hope Thru Harmony women’s chorus at Dayton Correctional Institution, UBUNTU Men’s Chorus at London Correctional and Kuji Men’s Chorus at Marion Correctional. Those three choirs, along with ones from Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota, are featured singing the “Prisoners’ Chorus” in Fidelio, Beethoven’s only opera. Each group sings 16 measures of the piece. Obviously, that portion of the opera is not performed live, but the opportunity for actual incarcerated persons to participate dovetails well with the storyline. Indeed, Fidelio features a woman whose black activist husband has been wrongfully incarcerated, so she disguises herself as a man and lands a job in the prison with hope of freeing him. Heartbeat Opera, which describes its production as pitting “corruption against courage, hate against hope,” is producing Fidelio May 2 through 13 at Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York City as a continuation of its mission to open the once highbrow musical art form of opera to new audiences. Heartbeat Opera’s Ethan Heard said directing Fidelio has been a “soul-stirring, life-changing experience.” Roma, who will attend the final show Sunday and participate in a subsequent panel discussion, added that the opera company’s work “touches souls.” “There are so many relevant stories in opera, especially if you contemporize them,” she said. “Heartbeat is proving that opera can reach people in relevant ways. They’re educating people on a totally different plane — a Beethoven opera. How magical to create such a space for opening opera to a greater demographic.” Until now, opera has been beyond the normal experience of most, if not all, of Roma’s singers, the veterans of whom have achieved such pinnacles as being recorded on prison choir CDs and having earned acclaim at the World Choir Games. Their musical role in Fidelio presented them with the challenge of singing in German, which Roma said they perfected and were “very expressive” in their performance. “They handled it so beautifully,” she said. Heartbeat Opera’s creative directors visited several of the prisons in March for the recording sessions, including London and Marion, and shared video taken of the prison choirs with Fidelio’s cast to more closely connect those performing in NYC with the remotely recorded contributions of the choruses. “The cast was blown away by the video footage,” she added. “They wrote how moved they were by working with them. It’s fun and exciting, and a true collaboration,” Roma said. She added that it’s important for everyone to have access to the arts, including those in what she describes as the country’s “prison industrial complex.” “People need to look at the humanity of the people we lock up,” Roma said. “The arts unlock and connect people to loftier ideals, goals and thoughts. They’re so important in terms of releasing people into greater understanding.”