Submitted Photo Live at the Met continues its 2019-20 season at the 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Feb. 1, at 1 p.m., with George & Ira Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. This production — the first of this opera at the Met in nearly 30 years — features an all African-American cast that includes the sympathetic duo of Eric Owens and Angel Blue in the title roles.

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 2019-20 season at the 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Feb. 1, at 1 p.m., with George & Ira Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.

In collaboration with the Opera House presentation, Fredonia Local Access Television will hold a public open house in its television studio beginning at noon and running through the intermission of Porgy and Bess. The television studio located in the basement level of Village Hall, just off the Opera House concession room. Light refreshments and a tour for the studio will be offered.

With Porgy and Bess, one of America’s favorite operas returns to the Met for the first time in nearly 30 years! James Robinson’s stylish production transports audiences to Catfish Row on the Charleston waterfront, vibrant with the music, dancing, emotion, and heartbreak of its inhabitants.

“If you’re going to stage Gershwin’s opera, this is how,” raved the Guardian when the new production premiered in London in 2018.

David Robertson conducts a dynamic, all African-American cast, featuring the sympathetic duo of Eric Owens and Angel Blue in the title roles and an all-star ensemble that includes Golda Schultz, Latonia Moore, Denyce Graves, Frederick Ballentine, and Alfred Walker. The opera runs three hours, 15 minutes with one intermission.

Live at the Met telecasts are now shown in more than 2,000 theaters in 73 countries across six continents, 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 27 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 716-679-1891, Tuesday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. Tickets may be purchased online anytime at www.fredopera.org.

The Live at the Met Series is underwritten with support from Daniel S. Kaufman and Timothy W. Beaver.

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