(PRINCETON, NJ) -- Westminster Conservatory's annual benefit concert takes a theatrical turn this year, with a semi-staged production of the youth opera The Tinker of Tivoli, a comic tale about the dangers of pride and arrogance and the great rewards of love.   Performances will be Saturday, June 8 at 7:00pm and Sunday, June 9 at 3:00pm in the Robert L. Annis Playhouse on the Westminster Choir College of Rider University campus in Princeton. Tickets are $10, sold in advance at the Westminster Conservatory Office, and $15 adults/$10 children 12 and under at the door. All proceeds will benefit Conservatory programs.

The opera, written and directed by Conservatory faculty members Michael Jacobsen and Danielle Sinclair, features an energetic musical score drawn from Gioacchino Rossini’s operas The Barber of Seville and La Cenerentola and set in the style of a Rossini comic opera, sung in English.  The plot is loosely based on the Brothers Grimm tale The Gallant Tailor.

This benefit performance brings together Conservatory faculty and student performers.  Conservatory voice students take the main roles, assisted by a student chorus.  Eugene Seong, who has been studying voice at the Conservatory for four years, plays the leading role, Beppe. 

Ruth Ochs conducts the accompanying chamber orchestra, composed of members of the Conservatory faculty and the Community Orchestra.  Jillian Newton, a Westminster Choir College Choral Conducting graduate student, is the chorus master.

All proceeds will benefit Conservatory programs.  Learn more about this performance at www.rider.edu/arts.  Westminster Choir College of Rider University is located at 101 Walnut Lane in Princeton, New Jersey.