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DLOC, Diablo Symphony Join Forces for ‘Brigadoon’ Concert June 28, 29 in Walnut Creek

The Diablo Light Opera Company (DLOC) kicks off its two-year 50th anniversary celebration in June with the Diablo Symphony in a special fully staged concert version of “Brigadoon,” Lerner and Loewe’s acclaimed first major musical.

The concert will be presented in the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek at 7 p.m. on June 28 and 2 p.m. on June 29.  Tickets ($20-$43) are on sale at the center, 1601 Civic Drive, (925) 943-7469) www.lesherartscenter.org.

Daren A. C. Carollo, DLOC’s artistic director, will direct a cast of 50 singers and dancers in the production.

“We’re thrilled to collaborate with the wonderful 60-member Diablo Symphony and given our outstanding performers, we know the concert will be equally thrilling,” says Carollo.  “There’s a sense of nostalgia, too, since ‘Brigadoon’was the first major musical produced by DLOC in 1962 following a number of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.”

The concert is the first event in DLOC’s 50th anniversary celebration, which will continue throughout next year.  The company was founded in 1959 and has performed close to 100 shows in Walnut Creek and other cities, including Antioch.  Under the baton of Joyce Johnson Hamilton, the symphony, the oldest in Contra Costa County, will be entering its 46th season.

Principal soloists, all veterans of Bay Area stages, include William Giammona, who has appeared in “The Secret Garden” with the Lamplighters Music Theatre and the New Conservatory Theatre; Rena Wilson, most recently seen in “The Student Gypsy”at San Francisco’s 42nd Street Moon and DLOC’s production of “The Music Man;” Danny Cozart, who appeared in DLOC’s recent “Songs for a New World;” and Derrick Silva, who also performed in “La Mancha.”

“Brigadoon” is a Scottish fantasy about a town that disappears into the Highland mist and returns for only one day every hundred years.  The score includes “Almost Like Being in Love,”  “The Heather on the Hill,” “Come to Me, Bend to Me,” and “ There But for You Go I.”

The musical was first presented on Broadway, where a revival is currently in the works, in 1947.  It later was made into a movie starring Gene Kelley, Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse.

After “Brigadoon,” Lerner and Loewe established themselves as Broadway legends with hits that include “My Fair Lady,” “Paint Your Wagon,” and “Camelot.”

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