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Opera House Met Live season continues with Puccini’s ‘La Fanciulla del West’

Submitted Photo Live at the Met, the Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning series of live, high definition (HD) opera transmissions to theaters around the world, continues its 2018-19 season at the 1891 Fredonia Opera House this Saturday at 1 p.m., with Giacomo Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West.”

Live at the Met, the Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning series of live, high definition (HD) opera transmissions to theaters around the world, continues its 2018-19 season at the 1891 Fredonia Opera House this Saturday at 1 p.m., with Giacomo Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” (The Girl of the West).

Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek sings Puccini’s gun-slinging title heroine in this romantic epic of the Wild West, alongside star tenor Jonas Kaufmann in the role of the outlaw Dick Johnson. Baritone Zeljko Lucic is the vigilante sheriff Jack Rance.

Puccini’s “American” opera, based on David Belasco’s play “The Girl of the Golden West,” had its glamorous and highly publicized 1910 world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera, with the composer in the audience.

With his international stature assured, Puccini explored new musical horizons in “Fanciulla.” There are few arias (the tenor’s Act III “Ch’ella mi creda” being a standout exception), and most of the music relies on changes of tone and color instead of set pieces. The orchestral sweep, appropriate to the dramatic landscape of the California mountains, is apparent in the first bars of the brief, explosive prelude. The score is marked by a preponderance of male voices, reflecting the title heroine’s isolation in an almost all-male world

The drama is set during the California Gold Rush, and the girl of the title is one of Puccini’s most appealing heroines — a strong, independent woman determined to win the man she loves. Although it fell out of favor with audiences for a few decades following its original success, “La Fanciulla del West” has rebounded in popularity in recent years and is now counted among Puccini’s best works.

Marco Armiliato conducts this production, which runs three hours, 42 minutes, with two intermissions.

Live at the Met telecasts are now shown in more than 2,000 theaters in 75 countries, making the Met the only arts institution with an ongoing global art series of this scale. The Met was the first arts company to experiment with this type of broadcast, beginning on a modest scale in 2006 and growing every season since then, with more than 10 million tickets sold to date.

Met Opera stars serve as hosts for the series, conducting live interviews with cast members, crew and production teams, and introducing the popular behind-the-scenes features; altogether, the worldwide audience is given an unprecedented look at what goes into the staging of an opera at one of the world’s great houses.

Individual tickets to each of the operas in the season are $20, ($18 Opera House members, $10 students). A flexible subscription of eight tickets which can be used however you want — one at a time to eight different operas, all at once for eight people, or anything in between — is available for $142. Tickets may be purchased in person at the Opera House Box Office or by phone at 679-1891, Tuesday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. Tickets may be purchased online anytime at www.fredopera.org.

The Opera House is equipped with assistive listening headsets for the hearing-impaired. Simply request one from any usher or Opera House staff member.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House is a member-supported not-for-profit organization located in Village Hall in downtown Fredonia. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.fredopera.org.

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