THEATER AND SUCH

 (Ed. Note: Irma Ashley, our regular Lakeside Living columnist, and Jackie Hodges, who handles the Focus on Art section, are both on vacation in the States. What follows was put together by Megan Tingen, and our Ojo staff. We hope to have them both back in place for our November issue.)
For love of the music
By Cindy Paul
     Last month our little corner of heaven reluctantly let go of an irreplaceable resident, Bonnie Wolff, who left us, we presume, for the real thing. As a result music, her greatest life love, lost a foothold here; I can feel almost all our Lakeside musicians stumbling over the ripple effect Bonnie's death is creating.
     This is not someone you say goodbye to lightly... she gave so much.
     Take the yearly Christmas Cantata, Bonnie Wolff's own heart-child, which she brought this community as a gift for so many years. That's a serious present, one you even keep the card and wrapping from. Ask any of the forty to fifty singers who loved her as a director and as a human being so vibrant it almost hurt to look at her sometimes. Ask any of the thousands of listeners who just didn't feel the season had begun until after Bonnie Wolff's beautiful "Christmas Cantata."
     It was my great fortune to sing in that group and to count her as one of my best friends and one of the best musicians I have ever known. She could make you feel you were singing with an angel choir just by smiling as she conducted. A lifelong teacher, she knew exactly undisputed effectiveness of careful practice.
     She worked locally as my Musical Director in My Fair Lady, Musical Monuments, and The Sound of Music, always with verve, focus on technical perfection, and unrelenting joy in the work itself. She also music-directed Guys & Dolls at the Lakeside Little Theatre, an enormous hit due in no small part to Bonnie Wolff. Most audiences have some awareness of the dedication of the cast and crew, but the job of Musical Director is easily overlooked, and it is the core job of any musical.
     A talented woman of endless energy, wit, intelligence and love of people... truly beautiful herself, inside and out... an inspiring blessing from heaven, Bonnie Wolff, I'm pretty sure, has now returned there to conduct angel choirs at the right hand of God.