Albany Tula Alliance celebrates with 'Road to Paradise'

The American premiere of the piece is Sunday afternoon at The College of Saint Rose, as part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the Albany Tula Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering the growth and support of residents of the Capital Region and the Russian city of Tula.

Luckily, Weinraub has plenty of friends in the music community on whom to draw for advice and support.

Besides being a devoted audience member at classical concerts and operas, she has served on the board of the Friends of Chamber Music for some 30 years.

For the painstaking task of laying English translations onto melodies written to accompany Russian words, Weinraub enlisted local voice teacher and soprano Corine Salon, who serves as music director of the production.

Weinraub says that Trofimova, although home in Tula, remained involved at every stage of the adaptation, making suggestions and approving changes.

Since "Road to Paradise" was written in a popular style, capturing the informal bits of humor and casual phrasing became an important task.