News and Stories
February 22, 2007
Browning Cinema presents Metropolitan Opera live in high definition
The Metropolitan Opera's live high-definition satellite broadcast of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" will be presented at 1:30 p.m. Saturday (Feb. 24) in the Browning Cinema of the Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Notre Dame.
Admission is $18, and $15 for children under age 12. Tickets are available by calling 574-631-2800.
Only 150 movie theaters worldwide are screening the performance, which is part of "Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD," a groundbreaking series of operas being transmitted to theaters in North America, Europe and Japan.
American soprano Renée Fleming joins Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky for this performance, which features a sweeping dramatic arc of youthful longing, rejection, regret and a desperate plea that comes too late, perfectly mirrored in Tchaikovsky's music.
Aleksandr Pushkin's poem, one of the classics of Russian literature, presented a vast overview of old Russian society around 1820, which Tchaikovsky's original score neatly divides into each of its three acts, featuring the timeless rituals of country life, rural gentry with its troubles and pleasures, and imperial aristocracy of St. Petersburg.
"This is a wonderful moment for opera," said Jon Vickers, director of cinema at the DeBartolo Center. "Fusing live spectacle and cinema through digital technology, bringing the grandness of live performance direct from the Metropolitan to our community, and making this art form more accessible are proud accomplishments toward our mission to entertain and inform. You don't have to dream of experiencing the Met. Now it's right here in our back yard."
Rossini's "The Barber of Seville," starring Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato and Peter Mattei, also will be presented as part of the series March 24 at the Browning Cinema.
Contact: Jon Vickers, director of cinema, DeBartolo Center, 574-631-2725, jon.vickers.6@nd.edu