CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Mountain State opera lovers can purchase tickets now for The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD movie theater transmissions for the 2019-20 season.
Three West Virginia cinemas will show the productions live including Regal Nitro Theatre, Nitro, Cinemark Huntington Mall, Barboursville, and Regal Morgantown Theatre, Morgantown.
The Live in HD lineup includes all five of this season’s new productions alongside five thrilling revivals. The season kicks off this month and continues through May 2020. All shows begin at 12:55 p.m. and run times vary.
Puccini’s Turandot: October 12, 2019
Massenet’s Manon: October 26, 2019
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly: November 9, 2019
Glass’s Akhnaten: November 23, 2019
Berg’s Wozzeck: January 11, 2020
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess: February 1, 2020
Handel’s Agrippina: February 29, 2020
Wagner’s Der Fliegende Hollander: March 14, 2020
Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda: May 9, 2020
Local playbills are made possible by the Betty J. Herscher Fund for Cultural Programming and are distributed by the Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting. WVPB television also airs opera productions on various Sundays at noon. For specifics, go to www.wvpublic.org/tvschedule.
The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series is made possible by a grant from its founding sponsor The Neubauer Family Foundation. Digital support is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The HD broadcasts are supported by Toll Brothers, America’s Luxury Home Builders, and the HD Live series is supported by Rolex.
There is no other woman in the world of opera like Carmen, the stunning Spanish gypsy, who is as passionate in her loves as she is for her freedom, totally unfettered by any code.
An operatic tour-de-force, Carmen will be sung in French with English supertitles during the simulcast from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera to theaters around the world this Saturday, November 1, at 12:55pm.
Opera lovers in West Virginia can see the live broadcast in Barboursville, Nitro, and in Granville/Morgantown. An encore will be shown on Wednesday, November 5, at 6:30pm. The approximate running time is three hours and forty minutes. Maestro Heras-Casado will conduct this mesmerizing production by Richard Eyre.
The music for the opera was written by French composer Georges Bizet (1838-1875) to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy based on Prosper Merimee’s novel Carmen. This opera in 4 acts premiered at the Opera-Comique in Paris on March 3, 1875.
As famous as the opera is today, Carmen was not received well by all of the patrons at its premiere opening. Its “indecency” shocked the Opera-Comique’s conservative audience and critics at the time described it as “immoral” and “low.”
Set in Seville in 1830, the seductive Carmen, sung by mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, convinces a young corporal, Don Jose, sung by tenor Aleksandrs Antonenlco, to leave his current sweetheart, Micaela, and desert his regiment. She soon tires of Don Jose and leaves him for the flashy and roguish toreador Escamillo, sung by Ildar Abdrazakov. Passions boil to a tragic ending as Carmen tries to join the victorious bullfighter in the arena after her discarded lover fails to convince her to return. It is opera at its core-betrayal, jealousy, metamorphosis from law-abiding soldier to thief, smuggling, even murder.
“Carmen always reacts to the state of mind and character of the other protagonists. Don Jose is a simple soldier caught in a passion beyond his comprehension, and we witness the gradual disintegration of what was once a man of character. Carmen watches the vacillating demoralized man and moves in for the kill at the right moment.” (Paul Henry Lang)
Bizet bestows on this musical score his greatest inventive powers of memorable melodies, colorful harmonies and rich orchestration. He understood how to compose for the human voice. “I have written a work that is all clarity and vivacity, full of color and melody,” he remarked.
Carmen belongs to the tradition of French opera comique, as we can tell both from the spoken dialogue and from the two-verse songs.
If you have never witnessed an opera , Carmen is a special treat. You will leave the theater singing or humming the music you just heard.
Dr. Larry Stickler is professor of music at Marshall University.
More than fifty years of marriage… plus two international performing careers… plus a shared passion for seeking out eclectic and interesting objects… adds up to one remarkable collection. World-famous opera singer Frances Yeend and her husband amassed just such a collection. It’ll be auctioned off starting this weekend at the Sagebrush Roundup near Fairmont.
Credit Louis Melancon-Metropolitan Opera Archives
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Frances Yeend in Elektra at the Metropolitan Opera
Frances Yeend spent her twilight years in Morgantown, but earlier her strong soprano voice graced stages and major concert halls around the nation and the world during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Her husband, James Benner, also traveled far and wide as an accomplished accompanist and voice coach.
In a 2002 interview for West Virginia Public Television’s series Aging With Grace and Dignity, Yeend expressed her love for world travel.
yeendmixdown.mp3
Listen to the audio from the Aging With Grace and Dignity series interview with Frances Yeend and James Benner.
“I love going places,” said Yeend. “I’ve always loved going in different places in the world. Italy and France. Germany. All those places. I’ve been to all the different ones and I’ve enjoyed them very, very much.”
During their travels, she and her husband began to amass an incredible collection of antiques and books. In the late 60’s they gave up living out of suitcases and left New York City to join the music faculty at West Virginia University.
Their collection came with them to Morgantown…and continued to grow.
Yeend passed away in 2008 and Benner, faced with some health issues, is downsizing into a small apartment. The time has come, he says, to sell the collection.
It's hard to suddenly say it's all going to go. – James Benner
“I’ve tried to make my mind set as rigid about getting rid of things as I was about collecting them, back when I was collecting them, in my pack rat stages so to speak,” says Benner. “But it’s a big emotional upheaval to get rid of all these things which we both loved so much and collected over so many years.”
Benner says his relatives live far away. They’ve had the chance to come and select the things they would like to have. But he didn’t want his family to have to figure out what to do with the rest of it later.
“I had been negotiating somewhat with auction houses in New York for the museum quality stuff,” says Benner. “But it’s so expensive and so difficult to get the things there, and I would still be stuck with everything that’s in the house.”
Yeend and Benner attended many of Pyle’s auctions over the years. He said they were among his best customers. Now his role is to survey the contents of their entire home and prepare the collection for sale.
“When you look at the inventory of this house,” says Pyle. “I mean it’s…they’ve been into lithographs, they’ve been into glassware, Staffordshire, Persian rugs, Asian, ivory, Renaissance furniture, paintings, an unbelievable library of books.”
Pyle says there will be between two and three thousand selling lots, with some lots having as many as 40 or 50 items. He and his crew have been working behind the scenes for months. They’ve spent lots of time with Benner, who says he’s been happy to talk about the items he loves.
“I often do remember the particular circumstances of a purchase,” says Benner. “Especially if it’s a major purchase, because you think a lot before you decide to spend the money on something. And we didn’t usually buy things with an idea that it was a good purchase marketwise or anything like that. We bought things that we loved.”
A screenshot of the auction catalog shows thumbnail photos of just a few of the items up for auction.
Quirky items sometimes caught their eye.
“One of the most unusual things that’s in the sale is a Buddhist manuscript which opens like an accordion kind of, it’s almost a foot long – three feet long. And I remember seeing that in a shop in California and thinking every household needs one.”
Pyle says there won’t be another auction like this around here for many, many years. He says it’ll be fun to watch and there will be something there for everybody.
There will be items that sell for $20. There will be items that sell for $30,000. – Joe R. Pyle
The initial auction will take place this Friday and Saturday…with an additional date of October 2, 2014 that will focus solely on the library. At least one – possibly two more auction days will follow later in October.
So, the stage is set.
“We’re not going to have an opera, we’re going to have an auction,” says Pyle. “So, it’s kind of, you know, leading up to that, we’ve put brochures out the same way they put the poster out in front of the Met, you know. And the advertising piece and let everybody know – get there for the show. So it IS the show.”
Credit Sarah Lowther Hensley
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James Benner at his apartment in Morgantown. On the wall behind him is a portrait of his late wife, Frances Yeend, as well as a few items he’s keeping from their shared collection.
The story of Cinderella has been passed down from generation to generation in many versions and languages. In the opera “La Cenerentola” by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist JacapoFerretti, there is no fairy godmother, no magic, and no glass slipper. Cenerentola is treated like a housemaid by her blustery stepfather and her sniping stepsisters until the charming prince marries her and changes her life forever.
“La Cenerentola” will be simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera in high definition and surround sound to select theaters around the world this Saturday, May 10, 2014, at 12:55 p.m., as the last simulcast in The Met: Live in HD series for the 2013-2014 series. Opera lovers in West Virginia can see this two-act comic opera at the Cinemark Theater at the Huntington Mall in Barboursville; Regal Nitro Stadium 12; and Hollywood Stadium 12 in Granville/Morgantown, as well as at the Cinemark Theater in Ashland, Kentucky.
With an approximate runtime of three hours and forty minutes, the opera will be sung in Italian with English subtitles. An encore will be shown on Wednesday, May 14, at 6:30 p.m.
Superb American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato will take center stage as Angelina (Cenerentola). Baritone Alessandro Corbelli will sing the role of Don Magnifico, Cenerentola’s fool-of-a-father, and soprano Rachelle Durkin and mezzo-soprano Patricia Risley will sing the roles of Clorinda and Tisbe, Cenerentola’s stepsisters.
Dashing tenor Juan Diego Florez will sing the role of the Prince of Salerno; baritone Pietro Spagnoli will sing the role of Dandini, a valet to the prince; and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni will sing the role of Alidoro, former tutor to the prince.
Maestro Fabio Luisi will conduct this opera production by Cesare Lievi and directed by Eric Einhorn. This is a return of the Met production from 1997 which gives this 1817 classic opera a 1930s look.
For the role of Cenerentola, Rossini demands a mezzo-soprano or a contralto able to handle extended coloratura passages (rapid runs, arpeggios, and trills). Listen particularly for Ms. DiDonato’s final showpiece aria (“Non piu mesta”), the music of a joyous young bride singing virtuosic melismas throughout her vocal range from low notes to high notes – bel canto (“beautiful singing”) at its best.
Listen, too, for the Prince’s aria in Act 2 with its dazzling melismas and thrilling high notes.
You will hear the exuberance of Rossini’s music – strong rhythms, richly-colored orchestration, fast tempos, sudden crescendos. Listen for astonishing ensembles as well as florid arias. You will identify a “Rossinian” style in this magnificent music.
Dr. Stickler is professor of music at Marshall University.
The setting is Naples, Italy, late 18th century. Two young officers, Ferrando and Guaglielmo, boast about the beauty and virtue of their girlfriends, the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella. Their older friend, the cynical philosopher Don Alonso, declares that a woman’s constancy is like the phoenix – everyone talks about it but no one has ever seen it. Don Alfonso proposes a wager –if they will give him one day and do everything he asks, he will prove to them that the sisters are unfaithful, like all other women. (from the synopsis provided by the Metropolitan Opera).
Thus this wager becomes the catalyst for the story line of Cosi fan tutte, ( All Women Are Like That or The School for Lovers), an opera buffa (comic opera) in two acts by composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) on a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. The opera premiered on January 26, 1790, at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
Cosi fan tutte will be simulcast live in high definition and surround sound from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera to select theaters around the world at 12:55pm this Saturday, April 26. The opera will be sung in Italian with English subtitles and will have an approximate runtime of 4 hours. Opera lovers in West Virginia may view the production at the Cinemark Theater at the Huntington Mall in Barboursville; Regal Nitro Stadium 12; and Hollywood Stadium 12 in Granville/Morgantown, as well as at the Cinemark Theater in Ashland. An encore will be shown on Wednesday, April 30, at 6:30pm.
Metropolitan Opera Music Director James Levine will conduct this revival of Lesley Koenig’s traditional production from 1996. Lyric tenor Matthew Polenzani and the baritone Rodion Pogossov will sing the roles of Ferrando and Guglielmo. These competitive friends will claim that they must go off to war and then return in disguise as exotic Albanians to try to win over each other’s fiancées as challenged by Don Alfonso sung by bass-baritone Maurizio Muraro.
Listen for the sincerely felt love song “Un’aura amorosa”, in which the dreamer Ferrando reflects on the constancy, or so he assumes, of his beloved Dorabella, as well as the aria “Donne mie” (“Dear Ladies”), in which the blustery Guglielmo denounces all women with their capacity for deception.
The two leading ladies must handle very difficult singing roles. They present a pair of “demure damsels” who gradually are attracted to the “foreigners.” Lyric soprano Susanna Phillips, Fiordiligi, and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, Dorabella, have many duet passages as well as solo arias. Listen for the poignant aria “Per pieta” (“Have pity”) when Fiordiligi shamefully realizes that she is weakening to the romantic entreaties of a stranger who is actually her sister’s boyfriend in disguise. (Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times)
Soprano Danielle de Niese sings the role of the “sassy, worldly and wise” Despina, the chambermaid who works for the sisters. In the aria “In uomini, in soldati”, Despina advises the sisters to find new lovers since men are unworthy of a woman’s fidelity. Despina can steal the show when she is on stage. Watch for her own disguises as a doctor and as a notary.
Cosi fan tutte is a difficult opera and requires great musicianship from the singers on the stage as well as the instrumentalists and conductor in the pit. It is a wonderful ensemble opera-Mozart is able to combine the six characters into interesting musical pairings.
Cosi fan tutte is the first opera that I ever saw live. A student teacher took some of us to a production at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana. It was particularly memorable because a singer from my hometown was singing the role of Dorabella.
Dr. Larry Stickler is a professor at Marshall University.
Christmas Eve in Paris in the 1840s. A poet, a painter, a philosopher and a musician – all “starving artists” – share a cold, tiny garret in the Latin Quarter. They have not met their neighbor, the poor seamstress Mimi. This begins La Boheme (Bohemian Life), a four act opera by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), which was premiered in Turin, Italy on February 1, 1896, under the baton of the famous Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. The libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica was based on Henry Murger’s Scenes de la vie die boheme, which existed both as a novel, originally published in serial form and as a play (1845) in collaboration with Theodore Barriere. Present-day theater goers may have seen the Broadway show Rent on the same theme. La Boheme is the live in high definition transmission from the Metropolitan Opera to select theaters around the world this Saturday, April 5, at 12:55 pm. Sung in Ialian with English subtitles, the opera will have an approximate runtime of 3 1/2 hours. Opera lovers in West Virginia may view the simulcast at the Cinemark Theater at the Huntington Mall in Barboursville; Regal Nitro Stadium 12; and Hollywood Stadium 12 in Granville/Morgantown, as well as at the Cinemark Theater in Ashland. Tenor Vittorio Grigolo will sing the role of the poet Rodolfo and soprano Anita Hartig will sing the role of the heroine Mimi. Baritone Massimo Cavalletti will sing the role of Marcello, a painter, and soprano Suzanna Phillips will sing the role of Musetta, Marcello’s girlfriend. The role of the philosopher Colline will be sung by bass Oren Gradus, and the role of the musician Schaunard will be sung by the bass-baritone Patrick Carifizzi. “For more than 30 years, the known quality of attending Puccini’s La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera has been Franco Zeffirelli’s colorful, minutely detailed and popular production … The realistic setting shows Mr. Zeffirelli at his most theatrical and inventive.” (Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times) The best known arias from La Boheme include Rodolpho’s aria in Act I, “Che gelida manina” when he introduces himself to Mini, and her response to Rodolpho with “Si, mi chiamano Mimi” (“Yes, they call me Mimi”). In Act II, at the Café Momus, the spirited Musetta sings “Quando me’n vo soletta per la via, la gente sosta e mira” (“When I walk down the street all by myself, people stop and stare”) – Musetta’s very own personal waltz theme! In Act IV, to pay for a doctor, Musetta decides to sell her earrings and Colline sings farewell to his overcoat (“Vecchia zimarra”). Puccini assigns melodies or fragments of them to identify some of his characters. Warm melodies and poignant melodrama make for a moving musical score. The heroine dies tragically and the tenor collapses in tears – one of the most tear-jerking of all operatic ending, bringing the audience to tears as well. With a “balance of realism and romanticism, of comedy and pathos”, La Boheme has become a standard in the sentimental operatic repertoire. I would particularly recommend it to first-time opera-goers. An encore performance will be shown on Wednesday, April 9, at 6:30 pm.
Dr. Larry Stickler is a professor of music at Marshall University.
