Great Performances at the Met opens season 17 with Great Performances at The Met: The Hours, a new opera from composer Kevin Puts, adapted from Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel and the 2002 Academy Award-winning film by librettist Greg Pierce, and inspired by Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” Renée Fleming makes her return to the Met after nearly five years to star in this production alongside Tony winner Kelli O’Hara and opera star Joyce DiDonato. Phelim McDermott directs the production with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. Christine Baranski hosts.
Great Performances at The Met: The Hours takes place in a single day as it follows the stories of three women over three time periods and cities: Clarissa Vaughan in New York City in 1999; Virginia Woolf in Richmond, England, in 1923; and Laura Brown in Los Angeles in 1949. Over the course of the opera, Woolf (DiDonato) is writing the novel, Brown (O’Hara) is reading it in the 1950s, and Vaughan (Fleming) is seemingly living through its plot in late-20th century Manhattan. Grappling with loss, isolation, and their roles in society, the three women find that they are not alone as they make shared connections that transcend time and geography. The opera uses Woolf’s and Cunningham’s magisterial prose as a departure point from which to explore ambiguities and fluidities that are heightened further by musical expression.
Cast:
Renée Fleming – Clarissa Vaughan
Joyce DiDonato – Virginia Woolf
Kelli O’Hara – Laura Brown
Denyce Graves – Sally
Kathleen Kim – Barbara/Mrs. Latch
Kyle Ketelsen – Richard
Sean Panikkar – Leonard Woolf
Brandon Cedel – Dan Brown
Kai Edgar – Richie
Sylvia D’Eramo – Kitty/Vanessa
William Burden – Louis
John Holiday – Man Under Arch/Hotel Clerk
Tony Stevenson – Walter
Atticus Ware – Julian
Lena Josephine Marano – Angelica
Patrick Scott McDermott – Quentin
Eve Gigliotti – Nelly
Creative:
Yannick Nézet-Séguin – Conductor
Phelim McDermott – Production
Kevin Puts – Music
Greg Pierce – Libretto
Tom Pye – Set and Costume Designer
Bruno Poet – Lighting Designer
Finn Ross – Projection Designer
Annie-B Parson – Choreographer
Paul Cremo – Dramaturg
Christine Baranski – Host
