The Met: Live in HD continues Oct. 26 with Shostakovich’s The Nose

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

Durango, CO – The Met: Live in HD continues with William Kentridge’s innovative production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s The Nose on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013 at 10:55 a.m.

The Nose, a popular and critical success when it premiered in 2010, will be broadcast in high definition in the Vallecito Room of the Fort Lewis College Student Union. Soprano Patricia Racette hosts the approximate 2:15 hour transmission from The Met. The Met: Live in HD is presented locally by the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.

In The Nose, Paulo Szot reprises his acclaimed interpretation of the leading role of Kovalyov, a hapless bureaucrat who awakens one morning to discover that his nose has run away. His satirical misadventures in search of his missing nose are based on Gogol’s comic story.
Andrey Popov returns to the role of the Police Inspector and Alexander Lewis makes his company role debut as the peripatetic title character. Pavel Smelkov conducts.
[*An act-by-act synopsis of The Nose follows at the end of this release.*]

William Kentridge is considered one of the world’s preeminent visual artists. His work has been the subject of major gallery shows and museum retrospectives around the world. As a stage director, he has created acclaimed multimedia productions of Büchner’s Woyzeck, Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, and Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. He made his Met debut with this production of The Nose in 2010 and will create a new production of Berg’s Lulu in a future Met season.

Paulo Szot starred as Kovalyov in the 2010 Met premiere of The Nose. His other roles at the Met have included Lescaut in the new production premiere of Massenet’s Manon and Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen. He won a 2008 Tony Award for his portrayal of Emile de Becque in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific.

Andrey Popov made his Met debut as the Police Inspector in the 2010 company premiere of The Nose and repeated the role with Rome Opera earlier this season. He returned to the Met in the 2010-11 season to sing the Holy Fool in the new production premiere of Boris Godunov, a role he has also sung at Madrid’s Teatro Real.

Alexander Lewis is a graduate of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. He made his Met debut in 2010 as a guard in Manon. Last season, he sang Borsa in the new production premiere of Verdi’s Rigoletto and Ferrando in the Met-Juilliard joint production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, under the baton of Alan Gilbert.

Pavel Smelkov made his Met debut in 2010 conducting The Nose and returned the following season to lead performances of the new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. A conductor and composer, he collaborated with fellow conductor Gianandrea Noseda and stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov to create a new performance edition of Borodin’s Prince Igor, which will be heard at the Met for the first time this season in the company’s first production of Borodin’s epic in nearly a century.

The Met: Live in HD series will feature 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 2013-2014 program is:
· Nov. 9, 2013, 10:55 a.m. -Tosca (Puccini)

· Dec.14, 2013, 10:55 a.m. – Falstaff (Verdi)

· Feb. 8, 2014, 10:55 a.m. – Rusalka (Dvořák)

· 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 will be screened in Durango on Saturday mornings, typically 10 or 10:55 a.m. 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 ($24 ($22 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 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 gene