Page 12 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • June 1, 2011 Midland Park The Midland Park Borough Council last week introduced an ordinance to appropriate $335,575 to fund capital projects and $98,000 to set aside for the future purchase of large equipment. Moneys will come from the Capital Improvement Fund. One ordinance would allocate $225,575 for road improvement and drainage projects, including $125,000 for road paving under the interlocal agreement with other northwest Bergen municipalities, and $50,575 for drainage work. The DPW would purchase a one-ton pick-up truck with plow at an estimated cost of $36,000 and a tire changing machine and wheel balancer for $5,500. This will allow tire maintenance work to be done in-house at a substantial savings. The DPW garage would get a second-floor storage platform at a cost of $20,000. Borough Administrator Addie Hanna said that a new steel platform would replace the existing storage area built by DPW employees many years ago and still functional. She said that PEOSHA inspectors had determined on a visit that a professionally-built steel frame structure would be safer for employees to hold winter tires and other seasonal items. The volunteer fire department would receive $32,500 for various equipment and supplies, including training center upgrades, hose, radios/pagers and full gear and Scott air bottles, which are purchased yearly on a scheduled basis to spread out the costs over a number of years. The police department would get a new electronic speed sign for $6,000 to replace one that has been requiring inordinate amounts of maintenance, according to Hanna, and $10,000 for emergency services dispatch-related equipment. The reserve ordinance would add $50,000 to the reserve for the purchase of a fire truck; $30,000 to the DPW truck reserve and $18,000 towards the purchase of a hybrid vehicle for the police department. Council introduces capital projects ordinance For more than a decade, the council has been appropriating funds for large equipment purchases on an annual basis as part of its “pay-as-you-go” strategy. The set aside Underworld Productions Opera will present “Apollo & Dafne” and “Clarence & Anita” on June 8 and 9 at 8 p.m. at The Riverside Theatre, 91 Claremont Avenue at 120th Street, in New York City. Director Gina Crusco explained that the program is a double bill of Handel’s 1710 cantata and the stage premiere of Ben Yarmolinsky’s 2010 opera based on the Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill story. The operas are separated by 300 years, but are thematically related. The archetypal story of Apollo’s aggression toward Dafne, her escape via metamorphosis into a laurel tree, and wreath woven from her limbs, is viewed from multiple perspectives as American mythology. “Apollo & Dafne” and “Clarence & Anita” will be performed by Underworld Productions Opera with Adrienne Danrich, soprano, and Anthony Turner, baritone, playing in “Clarence & Anita.” Amelia Watkins, soprano, and Jesse Cromer, baritone, will perform in “Apollo & Dafne” with Sinfonia New York early music orchestra led by John Scott. Crusco is a graduate of Midland Park High School. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester and earned master’s degrees at Brown University and at New York University. She has been praised by The New York Times for her “elegantly simple staging.” Hailed in the Italian press as “la bravissima Gina Crusco,” she served as Maestro del Coro of Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto (Italy) for two opera seasons. She served on the voice faculty of New School University for nine years, and founded Underworld Productions in 2004. In 2009, she drew attention by incorporating the use reduces the amount that has to be bonded, if any, when the purchase actually needs to be made. The borough has virtually no bonded indebtedness. Opera ties classic work to ‘Clarence & Anita’ of text messages in her production of “Così fan Tutte.” Because Mozart did not specifically state which male and female characters end up together, Crusco set the opera in modern-day Massachusetts, and presented the audience with several options for the final wedding scene. Audience members then texted their choices of the possible outcomes, and the most popular was then presented on stage. Yarmolinsky attended one of these 2009 productions and decided Crusco was the right person to direct his new opera, based on her sense of humor and feminist sensibility. Asked about the similar threads in each of the short operas, Crusco said, “So much of ‘Clarence & Anita’ is about creating your own mythology, and both Clarence and Anita had almost mythological views of themselves.” She pointed out that the themes of power and authority, both of which are components of sexual harassment, are present in both operas. Dancers, who appear during various stages of the action in both of the operas, tie the stories together. “The dance component makes it coherent,” Crusco said. “It ties together the first and second half. It makes sense as the audience sees some things re-enacted by the dancers (during Yarmolinsky’s work). Crusco said she has been asked repeatedly whether she believes Clarence or Anita. She said that, while she originally believed Anita Hill, over the course of the project, she has empathized with Clarence Thomas. “Each one believed he/she was telling the truth. People (continued on page 18)