CCP brings Metropolitan Opera to the big screen

FOR the 9th time, productions by the Metropolitan Opera in New York City will be screened at Ayala Malls’ Greenbelt 3 in Makati City, giving Filipinos access to a powerful art form from the West.

Seven operas were chosen for this edition of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ (CCP) “The Met Live in HD” program.

Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier opened the season on March 5. First premiered in 1911, Strauss’ most popular opera follows a wise woman of the world involved with a much younger lover. She is later forced to accept the laws of time and give him up to a pretty young heiress.

“These are splendid operas that we don’t often get to see, so it is our hope that people will make it a habit to come here every first Tuesday of the month to enjoy an opera on the big screen,” CCP artistic director Dennis Marasigan said at the opening event.

This production of Der Rosenkavalier is set apart by the director Robert Carsen’s choice to transport the story from the mid-18th century to 1911, while staying true to the image of an idealized Vienna.

Soprano Lise Davidsen as the aging Marschallin was the stand-out, portraying the mature yet quietly tortured energy of a mid-life crisis in a luminous, operatic manner.

The tragic yet comical tale also came to life thanks to mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as the boyish lover Count Octavian, soprano Erin Morley as the beautiful young heiress Sophie, bass Günther Groissböck as the boorish Baron Ochs, and, of course, Strauss’ glorious score with Maestro Simone Young at the reins.

While Der Rosenkavalier is in German, and many other operas in Italian, the “Met Live in HD” screenings are provided with subtitles.

This show lasted four hours, but there were three 15-minute intermissions. During the intermissions, behind-the-scenes tidbits filmed by the Metropolitan Opera were shown, from singers rehearsing and production designers setting up, to the animal wranglers preparing the dogs that would go on stage for a brief scene.

“Met Live exists because opera is a fascinating, educational experience. We want it to be more accessible to Filipino audiences,” Mr. Marasigan said.

The upcoming productions to be screened this season are: Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco on April 2; Georges Bizet’s Carmen on May 7; Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and All Times of Malcolm X on June 4; Giuseppe Verdi’s La Forza del Destino on July 2; and Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking on Aug. 13.

All screenings are scheduled at 5:30 p.m. at Ayala Malls’ Greenbelt 3 Cinema 1 in Makati City. Regular tickets are priced at P450 while students get a discounted price of P100.

Tickets are available at Greenbelt ticket booths and via sureseats.com. — Brontë H. Lacsamana