Stephen Rumph with chamber ensemble and piano will perform the title role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Idomeneo,” Saturday, Feb. 4, 5 p.m. at Friday Harbor Presbyterian Church, 425 Spring Street.
The Italian opera follows Idomeneo, King of Crete, as he returns victorious from the battle of Troy, but along the way he encounters a terrible storm and his ship is almost lost.
When he vows to sacrifice the next person he sees to Neptune, the god saves his life.
Tragically, it is his own son, Idamante, he first encounters.
Mozart’s beautiful music paints an exquisite picture of a father torn between his love for his son and a sacred vow made to a god.
Since 2002, Rumph has taught courses on Mozart, Beethoven, Fauré, Bach, Verdi, Wagner, music and politics, opera, rhetoric, and semiotics at the University of Washington.
He has sung with the Seattle Symphony, Spokane Symphony, Walla Walla Symphony, Northwest Sinfonietta, Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, Tacoma Opera, Skagit Valley Opera, Berkeley Opera, and other opera companies and orchestras through the Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay Area.