Written By: Mary Adair Trumbly – Highlands PAC | Issue: March 2024
Highlands Performing Arts Center launches a glorious season of art and opera with a trio of presentations.
La Forza Del Destino by Verdi]
Highlands Performing Arts Center’s Great Art on Screen presents The Immortals: The Wonder of the Museo Egizio on Friday, March 8, at 5:30 P.M.
This documentary is a journey among the most beautiful archeological finds Egypt has left us. Kha, the architect and builder of tombs for the pharaohs, must undertake the journey to the Underworld. Telling us the story of his voyage is Jeremy Irons, in the guise of a narrator. His words take us inside the secret world of Egyptian mythology, religion and funerary culture, interweaving the story with the history of the oldest museum in the world, the Museo Egizio in Turin, founded in 1824 and will soon be celebrating its 200th anniversary. In fact, Kha’s own tomb is to be found in Turin along with the most complete and most valuable private collection of grave goods outside of Egypt.
The MET Opera will present two operas live via satellite in March. You’re invited to La Forza Del Destino by Verdi on Saturday, March 9, at 12:55 P.M. Verdi’s grand tale of ill-fated love, deadly vendettas, and family strife, with stellar soprano Lise Davidsen as the noble Leonora, one of the repertory’s most tormented – and thrilling – heroines. Director Mariusz Treliński delivers the company’s first new Forza in nearly 30 years, setting the scene in a contemporary world and making extensive use of the Met’s turntable to represent the unstoppable advance of destiny that drives the opera’s chain of calamitous events.
Saturday, March 23, at 12:55 P.M. brings Romeo & Juliette by Gounod. Two singers at the height of their powers – radiant soprano Nadine Sierra and tenor sensation Benjamin Bernheim –come together as the star-crossed lovers in Gounod’s sumptuous Shakespeare adaptation, with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct one of the repertoire’s most romantic scores. Bartlett Sher’s elegant staging also features baritone Will Liverman and tenor Frederick Ballentine as the archrivals Mercutio and Tybalt, mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as the mischievous pageboy Stéphano, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Frère Laurent.
There will be a pre-opera discussion before both operas beginning at 12:30 P.M.
Tickets are available at HighlandsPerformingArts.com.
We’re located at 507 Chestnut Street.