The Met: Live in HD continues Feb. 8 with Dvořák’s Rusalka

Performance transmitted “live” to FLC campus from New York’s Metropolitan Opera

Durango, CO – Opera sensation Renée Fleming returns to one of her signature roles, the title character in Antonín Dvořák’s soulful fairy-tale opera Rusalka, when The Met: Live in HD continues at Fort Lewis College, Saturday, Feb, 8, 2014 at 10:55 a.m.

Fleming will have just garnered wide fame beyond her genre having sung the “National Anthem” at the Super Bowl, Feb. 2, 2014. She is the first opera singer ever selected to sing at the NFL’s championship game.

This will be Fleming’s first performance for The Met Live in HD. She won the Met’s National Council Auditions 25 years ago singing the forlorn mermaid’s famous aria “Song to the Moon” and has sung the role of Rusalka more than any other artist in Met history.

Rusalka is the story of a water spirit’s tragic romance with a human prince, a storyline that is drawn from several folktale sources including Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

Star conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a cast that in addition to Fleming includes Piotr Beczala as the handsome Prince who Rusalka yearns to love; Dolora Zajick as the cackling swamp witch Ježibaba; Emily Magee as the Foreign Princess, Rusalka’s rival; and John Relyea as Rusalka’s father, the Water Sprite.

Of Fleming’s performance as Rusalka, The New York Post has written, “As the Rusalka, soprano Renée Fleming looked and sounded ethereal, her cool, silvery voice ideally suited to the role of a creature longing for a human soul. Even in the second act, when her character is made mute by a magic spell, Fleming movingly portrayed the miserable outsider. Of course, she sings, too – ravishingly in the opera’s most famous aria, “Song to the Moon,” in which the Rusalka laments her loneliness.”

The opera will be broadcast in high definition in the Vallecito Room of the Fort Lewis College Student Union. The Met: Live in HD is presented locally by the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College. Run time is approximately 4 hours.

The Met: Live in HD series features 10 performances over the 2013-2014 season. The “magic” of The Met: Live in HD events is that they are delivered 100 percent live via satellite. Audiences throughout the world experience the production at the same time as the audience sitting in the Metropolitan Opera itself. Additionally, between acts, The Met: Live in HD viewers are treated to backstage interviews and other features the “in person” audiences never see.

The remaining scheduled 2014 program is:
· Mar. 1, 2014, 10 a.m. – Prince Igor (Borodin)

· Mar. 15, 2014, 10:55 a.m. – Werther (Massenet)

· Apr. 5, 2014, 10:55 a.m. – La Bohème (Puccini)

· Apr. 26, 2014, 10:55 a.m. – Così fan tutte (Mozart)

· May 10, 2014, 10:55 a.m. – La Cenerentola (Rossini)

All productions are screened in Durango on Saturday mornings. Since the Live in HD series launched in 2006, more than 13 million tickets have been sold to opera lovers worldwide. The Met: Live in HD is now seen in more than 1,950 theaters in 64 countries around the world.

Advance tickets for individual shows are $24 ($22 for seniors, students, children and Met members) and available on-line at www.durangoconcerts.com or by calling 970.247.7657, or at the Ticket Office inside the Durango Welcome Center at 8th St. and Main Ave. in Downtown Durango. All sales final.

Tickets will also be available on the morning of each performance, one hour in advance of show time, at the FLC Student Union.

The Community Concert Hall is a not-for-profit, multi-use performance venue located on the campus of Fort Lewis College. Its ability to bring a diverse spectrum of shows to Southwest Colorado is made possible through a partnership with the college, a state-supported, independent institution of higher education, and financial and in-kind contributions from generous members of the community.