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Wine and Opera paired well during initial Music on the Square event
Where once the Goodwill store repurposed clothes and household goods, an intriguing new enterprise is spreading goodwill through music and "communiversity."
Music on the Square (aka M2), the DePauw University undertaking in the old Greencastle Goodwill store at the corner of Indiana and Franklin streets on the east side of the courthouse square, is off and running and recently hosted its first major public event, the inaugural Wine and Opera program.
Some 42 guests shared and talked about -- no surprise -- wine and opera on Saturday night. But participants didn't have to be connoisseurs of either to enjoy an interesting evening of food, drink, music and fellowship.
If all you really know about opera is that it's never over until the fat lady sings, Wine and Opera would have been right down your alley.
If all you really know about wine is red wine goes with red meat, and white wine with fish or chicken, expert vintner Jonathon Sellers shared a few tricks to tickle your underdeveloped palate.
Two more sessions of the program's first "communiversity" course -- as in community + university = expanded universe, coined by DePauw School of Music Dean Mark McCoy -- are on tap for Saturdays, Sept. 12 and 19 (however, most, if not all of the seats, are spoken for).
Wine and opera, McCoy noted in welcoming guests to Music on the Square, "are two things enjoyed as much as they are misunderstood."
During the wine portion of the evening, Sellers (a name that sounds like it ought to be on a wine bottle itself, McCoy said) stressed there were "no wrong answers" in how the wines of the evening were paired with Gail Smith's creations from the kitchen at Almost Home.
Theme of the evening, Sellers said, was "demystifying things."
"Wine should be fun," he added.
Prosecco, a sparkling Enza from Doc, Italy, was paired with Bob Zaring's Putnam-grown tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and salad greens, while a Charles Krug Chardonnay from Napa Valley was paired with a vegetable wellington and a prosciutto-wrapped shrimp. Unabashed, a Motto brand red zinfandel from California, was the evening's final wine offering.
Sellers offered a few tips about wine, including "there's no point in smelling the cork" because it basically smells like cork.
Or if your wine isn't supposed to be a sparkling variety but you see bubbles, "stop right there." That wine has been "corked" and probably "smells like a wet dog," the vintner noted.
But he got his most reaction out of suggesting a couple of unusual pairings for food and wine.
One personal favorite, he said, is pairing hot wings with sweet wines.
"It's an amazing pairing," Sellers said, that allows the heat of the wings to be counterbalanced by the sweetness of wines like Reisling.
But the piece d'resistance, he offered, is the unique pairing of a really good champagne with -- wait for it -- McDonald's french fries.
"I'm guessing it's all the sugar in those fries," he reasoned, not disclosing how he put that unusual combination together in the first place.
Cleverly, the theme of the evening's music lecture, McCoy pointed out, was "Opera, it's better than you think it is ... It has to be."
Professor Kerry Jennings of the DPU School of Music gave the opera portion of the program, picking up where Sellers left off in offering entertaining tidbits.
"Opera is everywhere," Jennings said, noting that his first exposure to the music was a handful of Bugs Bunny cartoon references. He called opera "a fantastic art form I've loved since I was a child."
He even played a clip of the Muppets interacting with an opera singer and showed a rousing video of Pavarotti performing an outdoor concert, adding "There's nothing like it ... you all want to clap."
He also recalled the movie "Shawshank Redemption" where the imprisoned Tim Robbins character plays "The Marriage of Figaro" over the prison loudspeaker in a bold protest move. Morgan Freeman, as Red, provides the narration in that unmistakable voice of reason, noting that none of the prisoners "knew what those Italian ladies were singing about, but for that one moment they were free men."
Meanwhile, several DePauw student singers gave brief performances to punctuate Jennings' points about opera and live music, even sharing a glimpse at the music of the opera "Little Women" to be performed at DPU this spring.
The evening was summarized by Mark Rabideau, director of the 21st-Century Musician Initiative at DePauw -- a unique program described as a complete re-imagining of the skills, tools and experiences necessary to create flexible, entrepreneurial musicians who find diverse musical venues and outlets in addition to traditional performance spaces, develop new audiences and utilize their music innovatively to impact and strengthen communities.
"This space is really about courageous music making," Rabideau said, noting that a number of interesting programs are coming up in the Music on the Square space over the next 20 days.
Use of the space, he said, translates to "young, energizing people doing spectacular things."
Rabideau also offered a glimpse at another initiative -- to ensure that the "transformative powers of the arts are available to everyone."
He said the DePauw music venture plans to initiate a fundraising effort to provide free music lessons for those school children who qualify for the free lunch program. Sponsorships of $20 will allow such students to participate and be exposed to the world of music.
More information on that effort will be forthcoming.