FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Great Barrington, Mass.—The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center will present the Metropolitan Opera’s 16th “Live in HD” season starting this fall, October 22, through spring 2023, concluding June 10. The broadcast series has been a popular part of Mahaiwe programming since 2007.
Ten operas will screen from New York City’s Lincoln Center to the Mahaiwe, offering high definition, multi-camera angle views of each production from the comfort of the Southern Berkshires’ premier theater. The Mahaiwe’s state-of-the-art screening equipment provides a top-quality experience.
“The Met always offers breathtakingly beautiful performances, and generates well-deserved loyalty among audiences. The HD broadcasts bring viewers all aspects of the programs in exquisite detail, including high-fidelity sound, intricate costuming, backstage scene changes, and interviews with the performers,” says Mahaiwe Executive Director Janis Martinson. “It never fails to be a stirring way to spend a Saturday afternoon.”
The new Met Opera Live in HD season opens with Cherubini’s Medea on Saturday, October 22 at 1 p.m. Having triumphed at the Met in some of the repertory’s fiercest soprano roles, Sondra Radvanovsky stars as the mythic sorceress who will stop at nothing in her quest for vengeance. Joining Radvanovsky in the Met-premiere production of Cherubini’s rarely performed masterpiece is tenor Matthew Polenzani as Medea’s Argonaut husband, Giasone; soprano Janai Brugger as her rival for his love, Glauce; bass Michele Pertusi as Medea’s father, Creonte, the King of Corinth; and mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova as Medea’s confidante, Neris.
Verdi’s La Traviata will stream on Saturday, November 5 at 1 p.m. Soprano Nadine Sierra stars as the self-sacrificing courtesan Violetta—one of opera’s ultimate heroines—in Michael Mayer’s vibrant production of Verdi’s beloved tragedy. Tenor Stephen Costello is her self-centered lover, Alfredo, alongside baritone Luca Salsi as his disapproving father, and Maestro Daniele Callegari on the podium.
Kevin Puts’ The Hours will stream on Saturday, December 10 at 1 p.m. Soprano Renée Fleming — headliner of the Mahaiwe’s 2022 gala on July 30 — makes her highly anticipated return to the Met in the world-premiere production of Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Kevin Puts’ The Hours, adapted from Michael Cunningham’s acclaimed novel. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and made a household name by the Oscar-winning 2002 film version starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, the powerful story follows three women from different eras who each grapple with their inner demons and their roles in society. The exciting premiere radiates with star power, with soprano Kelli O’Hara and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato joining Fleming as the opera’s trio of heroines. Phelim McDermott directs this compelling drama, with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct Puts’s poignant and powerful score. Libretto by Greg Pierce.
Giordano’s Fedora will stream on Saturday, January 14 at 1 p.m. Umberto Giordano’s exhilarating drama returns to the Met repertory for the first time in 25 years. Packed with memorable melodies, showstopping arias, and explosive confrontations, Fedora requires a cast of thrilling voices to take flight, and the Met’s new production promises to deliver. Soprano Sonya Yoncheva, one of today’s most riveting artists, sings the title role of the 19th-century Russian princess who falls in love with her fiancé’s murderer, Count Loris, sung by star tenor Piotr Beczała. Soprano Rosa Feola is the Countess Olga, Fedora’s confidante, and baritone Artur Ruciński is the diplomat De Siriex, with much-loved Met maestro Marco Armiliato conducting. Director David McVicar delivers a detailed and dramatic staging based around an ingenious fixed set that, like a Russian nesting doll, unfolds to reveal the opera’s three distinctive settings—a palace in St. Petersburg, a fashionable Parisian salon, and a picturesque villa in the Swiss Alps.
Wagner’s Lohengrin will stream on Saturday, March 18 at 12 p.m. Wagner’s soaring masterpiece makes its triumphant return to the Met stage after 17 years. In a sequel to his revelatory production of Parsifal, director François Girard unveils an atmospheric staging that once again weds his striking visual style and keen dramatic insight to Wagner’s breathtaking music, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct a supreme cast led by tenor Piotr Beczała in the title role of the mysterious swan knight. Soprano Tamara Wilson is the virtuous duchess Elsa, falsely accused of murder, going head-to-head with soprano Christine Goerke as the cunning sorceress Ortrud, who seeks to lay her low. Bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin is Ortrud’s power-hungry husband, Telramund, and bass Günther Groissböck is King Heinrich.
Verdi’s Falstaff will stream on Saturday, April 1 at 12:30 p.m. Baritone Michael Volle stars as the caddish knight Falstaff, gleefully tormented by a trio of clever women who deliver his comeuppance, in Verdi’s glorious Shakespearean comedy. Maestro Daniele Rustioni takes the podium to oversee a brilliant ensemble cast that features sopranos Hera Hyesang Park Ailyn Pérez, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, tenor Bogdan Volkov, and baritone Christopher Maltman.
Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier will stream on Saturday, April 15 at 12 p.m. A dream cast assembles for Strauss’s grand Viennese comedy. Soprano Lise Davidsen is the aristocratic Marschallin, opposite mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as her lover, Octavian, and soprano Erin Morley as Sophie, the beautiful younger woman who steals his heart. Bass Günther Groissböck returns as the churlish Baron Ochs, and Markus Brück is Sophie’s wealthy father, Faninal. Maestro Simone Young takes the Met podium to oversee Robert Carsen’s fin-de-siècle staging.
Terence Blanchard’s Champion will stream on Saturday, April 29 at 1 p.m. Six-time Grammy Award–winning composer Terence Blanchard brings his first opera to the Met after his Fire Shut Up in My Bones triumphantly premiered with the company to universal acclaim in 2021. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green is the young boxer Emile Griffith, who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, and bass-baritone Eric Owens portrays Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Soprano Latonia Moore is Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is the bar owner Kathy Hagan. Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium for Blanchard’s second Met premiere, also reuniting the director-and-choreographer team of James Robinson and Camille A. Brown. Libretto by Michael Cristofer.
Mozart’s Don Giovanni will stream on Saturday, May 20 at 1 p.m. Tony Award–winning director Ivo van Hove makes a major Met debut with a new take on Mozart’s tragicomedy, re-setting the familiar tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape and shining a light into the dark corners of the story and its characters. Maestro Nathalie Stutzmann makes her Met debut conducting a star-studded cast led by baritone Peter Mattei as a magnetic Don Giovanni, alongside the Leporello of bass-baritone Adam Plachetka. Sopranos Federica Lombardi, Ana María Martínez, and Ying Fang make a superlative trio as Giovanni’s conquests—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina—and tenor Ben Bliss is Don Ottavio.
The new Met Opera Live in HD season will conclude with Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte on Saturday, June 10 at 1 p.m. One of opera’s most beloved works receives its first new Met staging in 19 years—a daring vision by renowned English director Simon McBurney that The Wall Street Journal declared “the best production I’ve ever witnessed of Mozart’s opera.” Nathalie Stutzmann conducts the Met Orchestra, with the pit raised to make the musicians visible to the audience and allow interaction with the cast. In his Met-debut staging, McBurney lets loose a volley of theatrical flourishes, incorporating projections, sound effects, and acrobatics to match the spectacle and drama of Mozart’s fable. The brilliant cast includes soprano Erin Morley as Pamina, tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Tamino, baritone Thomas Oliemans in his Met debut as Papageno, soprano Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, and bass Stephen Milling as Sarastro. This screening is an encore date per Mahaiwe scheduling.
Tickets go on sale to Mahaiwe Bravo Circle and Met Opera Members on Tuesday, August 2 at noon; Mahaiwe Members on Thursday, August 4 at noon; and the public on Saturday, August 6 at noon.
Tickets are $25 each or $10 for ages 21 and under. Tickets are available at mahaiwe.org and the Mahaiwe Box Office (413-528-0100) during open hours: Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 4 p.m., plus three hours before showtimes. Events are masked, and proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test result will be required upon admission; see mahaiwe.org/update for more information on current safety guidelines.
Mahaiwe’s Met Opera lecturer Scott Eyerly will again offer talks corresponding with each production. Check mahaiwe.org for updates.
The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant from its founding sponsor, the Neubauer Family Foundation. Digital support of The Met: Live in HD is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The Met: Live in HD series is supported by Rolex. The HD Broadcasts are supported by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder.
About the Mahaiwe
Located in downtown Great Barrington, Mass., the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center is the year-round presenter of world-class music, dance, theater, classic films, Live in HD broadcasts, and arts education programs for the southern Berkshires and neighboring regions. The intimate jewel box of a theater opened in 1905. Since 2005, the performing arts center has hosted over 1,500 events and welcomed over half a million people through its doors. More than 22,000 students from 73 different schools have benefited from the Mahaiwe’s school-time performances and residencies. For more information, see mahaiwe.org.
Images: