Brenau University will host a historic presentation on the same program of both the play and opera versions of the classic Irish tragedy "Riders to the Sea" at 8 p.m. Friday, April 11, in Pearce Auditorium here.

The unique collaboration with Clayton State University will include a performance of the one-act 1904 drama by Irish playwright John Millington Synge. That will be followed with a performance of the 1927 Ralph Vaughan Williams opera, which is based on the play, produced by the International Opera Center at Brenau University. The opera and the play will be repeated at 7 p.m. Friday, April 18, at the Clayton State Theatre on the Morrow, Ga., campus. Performances in both venues are open to the public. Admission is $10 at Brenau and $5 at Clayton State.

"This is a first in opera and theater," said William Fred Scott, director of the Brenau opera center and the university's artist-in-residence. "I know of no other time in which both the play and the opera versions of 'Riders to the Sea' have been on the same performance bill."

Scott said the collaboration with Clayton State is also a first for both institutions, adding that he is "delighted that we both will be able to expand beyond our normal performance venues."

"We have so much talent in colleges and universities in north Georgia. Brenau's outstanding theater program has enjoyed a long and successful relationship with Gainesville State College in the Gainesville Theatre Alliance, and hopefully this new collaboration will open doors for more cross-discipline endeavors with other institutions."

The April 11 program at Brenau is the International Opera Center's annual spring program. It also will include a performance of "The Telephone," the 1937 comic opera by Italian-born American composer Gian Carlo Menotti. That work, said Scott, provides an excellent counterpoint to the deadly serious Synge and Williams pieces.

"As another 'first' for the April 11 Brenau performance, it is extremely unlikely that you will ever see those two short operas, the very funny and animated Menotti on the same program with the moody, edgy, atmospheric Williams piece," said Scott. "The two works in one evening will provide audiences with an excellent idea of emotion and tone that opera offers."

Featured operatic performers, which blend professional and students, include contralto Laurie Swann, a 1983 Brenau graduate who will sing the lead part of Maurya in "Riders to the Sea," coloratura soprano Cassandra Gabrell, a 2007 Brenau graduate currently enrolled in Brenau's fifth-year opera performance certificate program as Lucy in "The Telephone," and soprano Robin Brackett, a Brenau senior who will sing the role of Cathleen in the Vaughan Williams opera.

Other musical performers include baritone Brent Davis of Cumming, Ga., in the roles Bartley in "Riders" and rounding out the two-person cast as Ben in "Telephone," and other "Riders" cast members - Atlanta soprano Katie Baughman as Nora, and Brenau sophomore Christy Harris, a mezzo-soprano in the role of The Woman.

Clayton State Theatre Artistic Director Phillip DePoy directs both performances of the Synge play.

Since its first performance in 1904 at what has become the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, "Riders to the Sea" is considered one of the seminal works of contemporary drama. Noted for capturing the poetic dialogue as well as for its controversial takes on nationalism and religion in the troubled land at the beginning of the 20th Century, the one-act tragedy is set in the Aran Islands of western Ireland. The Williams one-act opera, which debuted in 1937 10 years after English composer completed the vocal score, maintained sensitivity to the rhythm of language and lilting syntax so well expressed in Synge's dialog; it is widely considered to be the composer's best operatic work.