Instructor of voice Donna Rollene's production of Mozart's satiric opera "Cosi Fan Tutte" was set in 18th century Naples.

Singing baritone, junior Jesse Einfalt played Don Alfonso, the cynical old philosopher who attempted to convince two soldiers that their fiancŽs would not remain faithful, because, as the title states, "women are like that."

The soldiers, Guglielmo, played by junior baritone Brandon Bolin, and Ferrando played by junior tenor Justin Cypret, refused to believe that their fiancŽs would practice infidelity.

Don Alfonso staked a bet that the women would become unfaithful. To prove to Don Alfonso that he was wrong, the soldiers conjured up a situation where they could prove that sisters Fiordiligi, played by senior soprano Madeleine Breeden, and Dorabella, played by sophomore mezzo-soprano Rebecca Rollene, would stay loyal.

The soldiers pretended to ship off to battle, then returned to the sisters disguised as rich Albanian visitors.

The Albanian costumes, coordinated by Stacy Ausherman, were flamboyant and colorful. Fiordiligi and Dorabella stayed oblivious of the soldiers disguise.

The sisters' maidservant, Despina, played by senior soprano Taylor Turner, was paid by Don Alfonso to convince the women to fall in love with the visitors, so that he may win the bet. She disguised herself as a doctor in one scene and a notary in another.

As Albanians, Guglielmo tried to win the love of Dorabella, Ferrando's fiancŽ, and Ferrando tried to win the love of Fiordiligi, Guglielmo's fiancŽe. They were confident that the sisters would remain devoted to them.

The climax of the opera contained jealousy, heartbreak and off-the-wall antics.

Metaphorically, the stage had split scenes; sometimes appearing messy, just like the characters' situation.

The chorus played the townspeople, soldiers, and wedding guests and moved the props.

A piano, played by Lorrie Dixson, was the instrumental background.

The libretto, or the text, written by Lorenzo da Ponte, was spoken in English, while the arias, or solos, were sung in Italian.

As an opera singer, Breeden proved successful. She created emotion in the crowd with her finely focused notes.

Rollene proved to be a talented, serious and comedic actress. She creates the right facial expressions for the right moment.

Bolin showed his talent for physical comedy. He twitched, tossed and created facial expressions that suited the scene.

Cypret sang soft as a tenor but has potential to expand more amplitude through time.

Einfalt also sang softly, but as a baritone, and showed potential as an opera singer.

Turner performed her three different roles, comically through animated voices. This set a tone for the satirical situation.

"Cosi Fan Tutte" will be performed Nov. 5-7 at the Jones Recital Hall and begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets can be reserved by calling (479) 524-7382.

Most students at John Brown University would agree that they were at least somewhat influenced in choosing JBU because of its outward appearance.

"I absolutely fell in love with the campus," said freshman Esther Carey. "The care and concern for little things like flowers, trees, etcetera make students feel welcomed."

Senior Kyra Hopkins, said the pretty trees and the quad, where people can hang out and play Frisbee or read, makes her feel like she is at home.

Along with the Cathedral of the Ozarks and several popular fields of study, such as graphic design and engineering, the campus serves as a symbol of JBU. This symbol is maintained by a specific group of people who work full time, year-round trimming bushes, mowing grass, laying mulch and planting trees, among other things: the Grounds Crew.

This group consists of about 40 work-study students and six main crew members who work together to make JBU look nice.

Every day at 7 a.m., Grounds Crew, Maintenance and the work-study students meet in the break room in the Boiler Plant to have Bible study, as do all facilities.

"We put God first, and then our work for the University," groundsman Dale Graves, said. "We work as God would want us to work."

John Blackfox, grounds foreman, said that the crew takes pride in anything it does and sets high standards for everyone to follow.

"We want the campus to look as sharp as we can get it," he said.

Blackfox is known as "Beaver" to everyone he works with, including the only full-time female groundswoman Hannah Miller.

"Supposedly when he was born, the nurses said he looked like a beaver, and it just stuck," she said.

Miller has worked on the Grounds Crew for about five years. She began working with the crew before she came to JBU, and though she graduated last December, she said she is still going strong.

"This is my favorite job I've ever worked, and it probably always will be," she said. "I love working outdoors, and I love the people."

Miller said that it is a humbling job because she is always learning new things and learning from mistakes. She described how one time Beaver told her to spread a little grass feed on the ground and instead of using a small amount, Miller used the whole $30 dollar bag by accident.

Miller also said that it is funny being the only full-time female on the crew because she is teased quite a bit.

"Girls tend to be emotional and guys are not, so that keeps me from getting too emotional over things that don't matter," she said.

Miller said the hardest time she ever had while working on Grounds Crew was during the ice storm last winter. She had just graduated and switched from part-time to full-time on grounds crew.

"It was discouraging sometimes because there was too much work, but we all just worked together and enjoyed the process. It brought the crew together," she said.

Beaver said that workers were coming in at three in the morning to salt the sidewalks so that students had clean paths to access during the day.

"We really got together and cleaned it up," he said. "We had our campus clean before anything else."

Groundsman Thomas Gale, said that it was inspiring to see young people such as Miller working side-by-side with the Grounds Crew.

"We sweat with them, bleed with them, and they give their heart to us, and that's very special," he said. "We've even stopped right in the middle of what we were doing to pray for them."

He quoted Proverbs 22:6 which states, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

The Grounds Crew manages its own greenhouse on campus to save money instead of having to buy new bushes to plant every spring. It also plants five trees for every one that is taken down.

Taylor Emanuelson, admissions counselor, said that the Grounds Crew makes a huge impact on a prospective student's visit and that the crew is a big part of why JBU has such a great reputation of being beautiful.

"They are some of the hardest working group of people on our campus," she said. "We are very lucky to have such dedicated staff."

With influences from musicians such as Damien Rice and David Gray, sophomore Adam Howard and senior Andrew Stevenson produced albums that derive from the indie folk genre.

Howard's first experience playing an instrument was taking piano lessons when he was six years old.

"The lessons lasted for a year and I didn't remember anything I learned," Howard said.

Two years ago, Howard's grandmother needed someone to play music for her wedding and he borrowed a digital piano from his friend.

"I really began to teach myself to learn how to play the piano and finally returned the piano this summer," Howard said.

The music he has written in the past year has been on the piano and is included in the tracks on his upcoming album.

Howard's album, "Shadows and Shapes" is themed around what happens during the night.

"The album is wrapped around my dreams, imagination, fears, failures and loneliness," Howard said.

The tracks on "Shadows and Shapes" include collaborations with junior Matt Musgrave and sophomore Jordan Weeks.

"I write all the parts for my music, but it is fun to include people that I think would fit the part," Howard said.

The music for this album is dark and is created by situations that Howard has been through.

"The strongest of emotions aren't always pleasant, but the easiest thing to write about is what you're feeling," Howard said.

The last track on the album ends with a description of a sunrise to foreshadow the next album Howard will make.

"I'm writing songs for my next album that will depict more of the day time setting by using a guitar and a mandolin," Howard said.

"Shadows and Shapes" will be released Nov. 30.

Stevenson began playing music six years ago and started performing his music when he was in high school.

"I was in a band with my friends for a while before I learned how to play guitar and we did covers of the Red Hot Chili Peppers at first," Stevenson said.

He began to take lessons to learn how to play the guitar, but through that he learned that he wanted to write instead.

"I ended up quitting my guitar lessons because I wanted to improve my writing instead," Stevenson said.

Stevenson's album, "PreTragedy-A Narration" was produced two years ago.

The album was written during his freshman year and contains the first songs he's written.

"The album was about me envisioning a death in my family without it actually happening and each song deals with how I would deal with it," Stevenson said.

There are four tracks on the EP and they are available on iTunes.

"Through iTunes I made about $1,000 from my music because I only got sixty cents per song," Stevenson said.

Stevenson has collaborated with seniors Caleb and Kegan Swyers in their band Floor Plan.

Stevenson is currently working on his new album and is waiting to record.

"With this album, I was trying to develop my song writing more and find a better way to write love songs," Stevenson said.

He began writing his second album when he met his wife and has written eleven songs since he has been married.

"My favorite song from my next album is called Darwin and it deals with the idea of survival of the fittest and how it relates to romance," Stevenson said.

"Darwin" has been used in the top ten religion and science movies on YouTube.

Stevenson has performed in Kansas City, Mo. as well as Fayetteville and Springdale.

Musicians such as Interpol and Jeff Buckley have influenced Stevenson, while The Decemberists, Tunng and Iron and Wine influence Howard's music.

On Nov. 24, BLUE is hosting a CD release show in J Alvin for Howard's album, "Shadows and Shapes" which will be available at the event.

Ever since I read Flannery O'Connor's "Mystery and Manners" for my 11th grade AP English course, I have been much more acutely aware of the use of violence in art and media.

O'Connor deftly defends her use of violence in her writing, saying, "In my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace ... With the serious writer, violence is never an end in itself."

Last weekend, I went with some friends to see Quentin Tarantino's movie, "Inglourious Basterds." I can say that I appreciated aspects of the movie, such as its creativity, but I can't say that I enjoyed the violence.

Hitler and the Nazis have been so demonized since WWII that part of you doesn't even hurt when you see a Nazi officer getting his head smashed in with a baseball bat or an already-dead Hitler being shot repeatedly in the face by a wild-eyed Jewish American.

But, to be honest, part of me did hurt because, in the end, it's just people killing other people. I don't think that the movie had any heroes, and I'm not convinced that Tarantino meant it to.

Television, literature and film are saturated with violence now more than ever. Most of us are at least familiar with pop filmmakers and writers like Tarantino, Chuck Palahniuk and Cormac McCarthy. I think it's fair to say that there is an innate human interest, if not fascination, with violence maybe more so for modern American society, because the average person, except those in the military and police force, has no violence outlet.

Most of us don't have to defend self, home or country. We don't even have to butcher our own meat for dinner. I can't say I have a great desire to do any of that, but I think the result of this is that few of us understand what violence even represents. We don't know the gravity of it or the sick, serious feeling that it brings.

The use of violence in art, media and life has contingencies too broad for me to pass a blanket judgment on it, but I do think that violence should be questioned more than it is. I think when we find ourselves enjoying or relating to violence we should be ready to ask ourselves questions like: Why do I enjoy this? Is this merely gratuitous? Does this cause epiphany? Is this noble? Is violence ever justifiable?

President Eisenhower, who was supreme commander of the Allied Forces in World War II and the first supreme commander of NATO, once said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."

Maybe these words seem odd coming from a military man, but I'm also guessing that he knew something about violence. As humans and as Christians, I just don't think we have the luxury not to question the violence we are exposed to on a nearly daily basis.