Local Opera Singer Part of Sunday Show In St. Cloud

(KNSI) – A Stearns County native returns home for a Sunday performance of Pirates of Penzance.

Angela Christine Smith is a contralto with the Gilbert and Sullivan New York Players. They’ll be at the Paramount Theatre for the well-known 19th-century opera, says Smith.

“Gilbert and Sullivan were around in the 1800s and they wrote 13 operettas, that is called the G&S canon. Gilbert and Sullivan are most well known for what we call the Big Three of those 13 operettas in Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Mikado.”

Contralto is the lowest range for a female singer and quite rare, so that helps determine which roles Smith plays. She will be Ruth on Sunday.

The Gilbert and Sullivan New York Players are embarking on their first tour in three years. They will crisscross Minnesota before stops in Kentucky, Illinois, and Iowa, among others. Smith says it is the longest tour the company has ever undertaken.

She is the daughter of Pastor Carol and Geary Smith of Place of Hope Ministries. Smith talks about what led her into a career in opera.

“I grew up singing in church and when I was in high school in Sauk Center, Minnesota, my high school choir director, Bonnie Nelson, she sort of took me under her wing [beginning in] the ninth grade. Then I went to St Cloud State.”

Smith also has a music degree from St. Olaf College.

Tickets are still available for Sunday’s show. A link to purchase them is here.

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