Don Carlo to Continue Met Series at U.C.A. Dec 13

A new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo is set for Dec. 13 as the 2010-11 season of Captured Live from the Met @ UCA continues.
 
The high definition broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera is set for 7 p.m. in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall.
 
Don Carlo will be the fourth of 10 high definition transmissions in the series sponsored by UCA’s College of Fine Arts and Communication.
 
Approximately 200 seats are available for each performance at UCA. Tickets are $15 for the public and $5 for students with valid I.D.
 
Walter and Sally Sedelow of Heber Springs are among those who have enjoyed the Met series at UCA.
 
“We went (from Eden Isle) to UCA for Boris Godunov,” they wrote of their experience. “Very impressive. It’s our hope to attend as many of those Met transmissions as possible — and they are much better at UCA than in Little Rock. The Reynolds acoustic situation is really superior, and more comfortable seating.”
 
According to www.metoperafamily.org, director Nicholas Hytner, who makes his Met debut with this new production, calls Don Carlo “the quintessential Verdi opera.” Hytner’s production drew praise when it opened in London.
 
Roberto Alagna sings the title role, with Ferruccio Furlanetto, Marina Poplavskaya, Anna Smirnova and Simon Keenlyside also starring.
 
“Not one of these characters is prepared to accept his or her own tragic destiny,” Hytner says of the epic tragedy in which romantic desire shapes the course of nations.
 
Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts this co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet
 
The original French libretto by François Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle was based on the play by Friedrich Schiller. The Italian translation is by Achille de Lauzières and Angelo Zanardini. Don Carlo had its world premiere in Paris on March 11, 1867.
 
The Met series will continue with Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West on Jan. 9; Adams’s Nixon in China on Feb. 13, with Adams conducting his own work; Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride on Feb. 27; Bartlett Sher’s new production of Rossini’s Le Comte Ory on April 10; Capriccio on April 25; and Verdi’s Il Trovatore on May 1.
 
This is the fifth season of the Met’s series, which came to UCA in 2008. The transmissions are now shown in 1,500 theaters in 46 countries. According to a release from the Met, a record number of more than 2.4 million tickets were sold last season.
 
To order tickets, call UCA Ticket Central at (501) 450-3265 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday or visit www.uca.edu/tickets.
 
The series is made possible by UCA’s arts fee.
 
For more information, call the Office of the Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication, at (501) 450-3293, e-mail jdlooney@uca.edu or visit www.uca.edu/cfac or www.metopera.org.