Venue: Oberlin College Conservatory of Music: Kulas Recital Hall

If comedy is all about timing, then Oberlin Conservatory’s production of Albert Herring was a master class in getting laughs. In four performances last week, professor and stage director Jonathon Field ran his young cast through whipcrack pacing, propelled by a smart performance in the pit to bring antic life to Britten’s comic opera.

For the past forty years the small town of Oberlin, Ohio, about a forty minute drive from downtown Cleveland and the home of Oberlin College and Conservatory, has hosted the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute (universally known to attendees and visitors as BPI).