Wet Your Whistle: Music from the Jazz Age

Enjoy an afternoon of great American popular music from the age of World War I patriotism through the era of speakeasies that arose in the wake of Prohibition. In celebration of the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s East Coast premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night (February 8 – 17, 2013) and the National Constitution Center’s world-premiere exhibition American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (now through April 28, 2013), Opera Company singers Sheryl Heather Cohen and John Miles present a musical trip through the era in the Center’s F.M. Kirby Auditorium. Unlock a treasure trove of memories with Irving Berlin’s classics “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “I Love a Piano”; patriotic songs like “Over There”; and Billy Murray’s “How Are You Going to Wet Your Whistle?,” one of the first of many songs anticipating the onset of Prohibition.