The Met: Live in HD continues Nov. 10 with Thomas Adès The Tempest

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

Durango, CO – The Met: Live in HD season continues on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012 at 10:55 a.m. with The Met premiere of the highly praised work based on Shakespeare’s classic drama The Tempest. British composer Thomas Adès makes his Met debut of his opera, lauded as a contemporary masterpiece.

The opera will be screened live 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.

A three-act work, with music by Thomas Adès and libretto by Meredith Oakes, The Tempest centers on Prospero, the former duke of Milan, who was deposed and for years has been living in exile on a deserted island with his daughter, Miranda. He has in his power the spirit Ariel and the indigenous creature Caliban. When those responsible for Prospero’s exile – including his brother, Antonio, and the king of Naples – sail near the island, Prospero, with the help of Ariel, conjures a storm to shipwreck them, exact his revenge, and arrange his return to Milan.

Brimming with dreamy and highly lyrical language in Shakespeare’s most musical vein, the original play contains divergent ideas and elements: the desire for revenge, the proper and improper use of power, the nature of magic, the superior force of young love, and the possibility of reconciliation. The text of the opera uses the play and its themes as a point of departure for musical imagination.

The opera’s score likewise strives for fidelity to the spirit of Shakespeare’s play, incorporating a full palette of moods. Comedy, romance and action, as well as reflection and fantasy, are depicted in music that is essentially lyrical but said to include brash and dissonant episodes when the story demands it. The Tempest is called a rare example of a contemporary opera that has achieved extraordinary critical and popular acclaim.
Baritone Simon Keenlyside stars in the central role as the sorcerer Prospero. The cast features a host of gifted singers, including Isabel Leonard as Miranda; Iestyn Davies as Trinculo; Alek Shrader in his Met debut as Ferdinand; Audrey Luna as the air spirit Ariel; Alan Oke as the brutish Caliban; Toby Spence as Antonio; and William Burden as the King of Naples.

Of the New York production, The New Yorker wrote, “A masterpiece of airy beauty and eerie power.” The story line of The Tempest, video clips and more, are at http://tempest.metoperafamily.org.

The “magic” of The Met: Live in HD events is that the performances 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. Equipment installed in FLC’s Vallecito Room during the Student Union’s recent renovation meets The Met’s high broadcast standard requirements.

All productions are screened in Durango on Saturday mornings, typically at 10:55 a.m. Productions remaining in the 2012-2013 The Met: Live in HD series are:
§ Dec. 1 – La Clemenza di Tito (Mozart)
§ Dec. 8 – Un Ballo in Maschera (Verdi) – New Production
§ Dec. 15 – Aida (Verdi)
§ Jan. 5 – Les Troyens (Berlioz)
§ Jan. 19 – Maria Stuarda (Donizetti) – New Production
§ Feb. 16 – Rigoletto (Verdi) – New Production
§ Mar. 2 – Parsifal (Wagner) – New Production
§ Mar. 16 – Francesca da Rimini (Zandonai)
§ April 27- Giulio Cesare (Handel ) – New Production

Advance tickets for individual shows – $25 ($23 for seniors, students, children and Met members) – are 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 at the FLC Student Union the morning of each performance, one hour in advance of show time.

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.