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“The Tales of Hoffman,” a French opera by Jacques Offenbach, will be fully staged and presented in Middletown’s MHS Performing Arts Center by the Connecticut Lyric Opera and the Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra on Sunday, Nov. 6, at 3 p.m. Two other Italian operas, Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” on March 6, 2012, and Verdi’s “Otello” on May 11, 2012, will round out the opera series season at the new 700-seat MHS Performing Arts Center, 200 LaRosa Lane, in Middletown which is brought by the Greater Middletown Concert Association.
Jacques Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffman” takes the real life of German poet E.T.A. Hoffman, and makes him the title character of three, fanciful stories of failed love. The result is one of the grandest and most expressive of all 19th-century French operas –achieving a combination of emotional depth and musical brilliance that only the finest opera composers ever equaled. The performance will be presented with English supertitles projected above the stage.
The star of the production, fresh from a recent triumph at London’s prestigious Covent Garden, is tenor Michael Wade Lee (Hoffman). The extraordinary cast of singers will also include the Connecticut Lyric Opera’s resident Lithuanian soprano Jurate Svedaite, who will sing the roles of Giulietta and Antonia; Romanian bass-baritone Laurentiu Rotaru playing the multiple villlians in the opera., and Connecticut’s native Sarah Asmar debuting with the company as Olympia, while the role of Nicklaus will be portrayed by outstanding Ukainian mezzo-soprano Galina Ivannikova, who is also debuting with the Connecticut Lyric Opera.
Tickets are available on a three-series or individual opera basis. The series of three operas is $65 (front) and $60 (rear). The individual opera prices are $40 (front) and $35 (rear) for each opera. Call 860 347-4887 or 860 346-3369, or e-mail: bmwa@aol.com, or visit the Greater Middletown Concert Association’s website.
All major credit cards are accepted.
I'm so excited to know about this! "Tales of Hoffman" is a great but not well-known opera, full of beautiful songs. It's a wonderful introduction to the opera,too. The hero Hoffman, looking for his true love, is tricked by an evil man with magical powers in each of the three acts. In the first, he bewitches Hoffman into thinking that a life-size mechanical doll is a woman. (And what a song she sings.) In the second, he falls in love with a sorcerer who -- well, I won't spoil it. In the final act, he finds his true love, and -- no spoiler! The music is fantastic, very lively, no droning, I promise. Go see it, you won't be sorry.
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