PORT TOWNSEND — French romantic songs, music from Richard Strauss, a song from “Peer Gynt”: They’re a few highlights in a performance at the Grace Lutheran Church sanctuary, 1120 Walker St., this Sunday afternoon.
The singer is one who is returning after a long absence: Sharon Trent, the classically trained mezzo-soprano.
She has won her struggle with cancer and is ready to come back to the stage to offer “some of the lushest vocal music in the classical repertoire,” as she describes it.
Admission to Sunday’s 3 p.m. concert with Trent and accompanist Helen Lauritzen is a suggested $15 donation, with a portion of proceeds to go to Dove House Advocacy Services, provider of support for survivors of domestic violence and other crime in Jefferson County.
It wasn’t easy to choose the songs for Sunday’s program, Trent said.
“There are so many beauties I sang years ago, and others that are my great loves now. I’m bursting at the seams with so much good music that I couldn’t decide on a particular theme,” she said.
“The concert is just one big bundle of treasures, loosely bound . . . Verdi’s ‘Ritorna Vincitor’ from ‘Aida,’ a nice dramatic start; a bit of bel canto from Bellini, Juliet’s ‘Cavatina’ from his ‘I Capuleti e I Montecchi,’ art songs by Richard Strauss, Korngold and Wagner,” alongside French pieces by Du Parc, Russian ones by Rachmaninoff, and “Solveig’s Song” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt.
“They will be sung in Italian, French, German, Russian and Norwegian,” she noted, and “of course, translations will be provided.”
Many people have encouraged her and asked when she might sing again, Trent said, so she’s looking forward to seeing both familiar and new faces — and raising some money for Dove House.
The concert “will be memorable,” she said, “and will benefit one of the noblest causes we have here in Port Townsend.”
