Night Caps

Pittsburgh in the Round: As Opera Theater of Pittsburgh’s “SummerFest” performances draw to a close, Night Caps, a series of five mini-operas that – combined – run for but an hour or so, received the first of only two performances last night in the Hilda Willis Room of Winchester Thurston. All with text written by Rob Handel, head of Carnegie Mellon University’s dramatic writing program, the five comic and dramatic “suites” are accompanied by the music of as many composers, and received a good deal of acclaim when the first four debuted in the first “SummerFest” in 2012, and when the fifth was first heard the following year. The setting of the action is a hotel managed by Miss Darlington (Kelly Lynch), with the assistance of Rudy, her bellhop (Elizabeth Bouk), both of whom make appearances in all five of the suites.