METROPOLITAN OPERA: LIVE IN HD

You don’t have to travel into New York to go the Metropolitan Opera! For our 20th Anniversary Season, Staller Center will present the full schedule of live HD opera from the Met via satellite, shown on the big screen in the Main Stage Theatre. Last season, Staller Center was the first university arts center in the region to screen live performances of the acclaimed operas from the Met. As many as a dozen operas will be presented in 2008-09, including well-known classics and new productions from the Metropolitan Opera. Performances are projected in high definition with Dolby Digital surround sound. Most operas will be presented on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. In some cases, the screening will be a rebroadcast of an opera captured at an earlier date.

OPENING NIGHT GALA  

September 22, 2008, 6:30 pm (Live)
3 hours 37 minutes / 2 intermissions

Renée Fleming stars in three of her most acclaimed roles for the Opening Night Gala performance. Music Director James Levine and Marco Armiliato conduct fully staged performances of the second act of Verdi’s La Traviata, the third act of Massenet’s Manon, and the final scene from Richard Strauss’s Capriccio. Tenor Ramón Vargas and baritones Thomas Hampson and Dwayne Croft join the soprano for this season-opener. ( North America theater locations only)  

Berlioz
LA Damnation De Faust
New Production
December 7, 2008, 1 pm
(Encore from November 22)
2 hours 45 minutes /one intermission

Berlioz’s contemplation of good and evil is interpreted by Robert Lepage, one of theater’s most imaginative directors. Marcello Giordani stars in the title role opposite Susan Graham as Marguerite and John Relyea as Méphistophélès. James Levine conducts this rarely staged masterwork.  

Renée Fleming plays the Egyptian courtesan in search of spiritual sustenance and Thomas Hampson is the monk who falls from grace. Massenet’s sensual score is presented in a new production by John Cox with Jesús López-Cobos conducting.  

Nicolas Joël directs this new production, which stars opera’s charismatic real-life duo Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna, in Puccini’s gorgeously melodic look at love. Marco Armiliato conducts.  

Mary Zimmerman’s new production explores the opera’s dual elements of sleep and wakefulness in a staging set in the present day. Bellini’s lyrical score soars with Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez in the leading roles; Evelino Pidò conducts.  

Elına Garanca, who had her triumphant Met debut last season, stars in the title role of Rossini’s Cinderella story. She appears opposite Lawrence Brownlee, with Maurizio Benini conducting.