Celebrating the Holiday: Camp Lejeune
July 4, 2005

On July 4, 2005, the National Endowment for the Arts helped more than 15,000 Marines and their families at Camp Lejeune celebrate the holiday with a special “preview” performance of opera and Broadway classics.  The NEA offered Great American Voices as a replacement for the award-winning Second Marine Division Band, which traditionally performs at this annual event but was deployed to Iraq to support Headquarters Battalion, Second Marine Division.

Featured singers from Opera Carolina performing with the Winston-Salem Orchestra before a crowd of 15,000 at Camp Lejeune. Photo by Leslie Liberato.

This was a super-sized performance by Opera Carolina and the Winston-Salem Symphony.  Four very talented opera singers performed with a 55-piece orchestra and 30-member chorus.  Highlights included songs from musicals such as Showboat and West Side Story as well as popular excerpts from American operas such as Susannah and Candide.  One of the opera singers, Alvy Powell (also known as Staff Sergeant Alvy Powell) performed in his Army dress blues. Gunnery Sargeant Yolanda Mayo (who has served 3 tours in Iraq and is based at Camp Lejeune) was also on stage in her dress uniform to serve as a narrator for some text parts of God Bless America. It was a wonderful and fascinating mix of opera and military.

After 1 1/2 hours of music, the evening ended with the spectacular performance of God Bless America segueing into Stars and Stripes Forever and then the 1812 Overture, complete with live cannons being fired behind the stage (a spectacle indeed for the uninitiated!). The music faded out as the first fireworks shot off to the roars of the crowd.

Concert program (PDF)(92K)

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