Hubbard Hall Opera Theater (HHOT) will present a travelling piano production of Puccini’s La Bohème as a special encore performance and joint fundraiser with the Old First Church in Bennington, VT. Saturday, November 3 at 8pm.
The Church is located on Monument Ave, Old Bennington, VT with admission set at $15 adult / $10 student (high school – college) / $5 children under twelve, and tickets only available at the door.
The production, seen in the clip above, is directed by Jason Dolmetsch, music accompanied by Michael Clement and featuring Brian J. Kuhl and Vedrana Kalas.
The program, featuring 75 minutes of some of the most gorgeous music in the opera canon (including “Che gelida manina,” “Mi chiamano Mimi” and Musetta’s aria), will be semi-staged and sung in Italian with supertitles, directed by Jason Dolmetsch and with accompaniment by Michael Clement.
The event is an annual outreach performance by the young opera company, showcasing different young performers each season and building excitement for what the rest of the season has in store including La Traviata with a 23 piece orchestra in February at the Proctors GE Theater. Founded in 2008 by Managing Artistic Director Alexina Jones, HHOT has consistently presented critically acclaimed shows including the 2011 production of Don Pasquale which was most recently awarded second place in the American Prize, a national competition for classical artists and performing groups, and the 2012 production of Magic Flute hailed by the New York Times as “…the best by far. It was an exhilarating event. You couldn’t monetize it; you couldn’t commodify it … you could only experience it.”
La Bohème, with its melodic score and poignant story of young love and true friendships, is one of most frequently performed operas worldwide and premiered in Turin’s Teatro Regio in 1896. Set in the students’ quarter of Paris circa 1830, where gayety and pathos touch elbows, it laughs as well as weeps. The HHOT program will feature up and coming area artists, Vedrana Kalas (Mimi), Irina Petrik (Musetta), as well as Minnesota-based Brian J. Kuhl (Rudolfo) and the well-known Boston baritone, Kevin Kees (Marcello).
About Hubbard Hall Opera Theater
Building off of the rich tradition of arts in the Cambridge Valley, Hubbard Hall Opera Theater seeks to bring yet another element of culture to an already bustling center. HHOT strives to give young artists opportunities to perform key operatic roles in a nurturing environment alongside seasoned professionals through mainstage productions, the conservatory student training program and outreach performances. HHOT also engages and builds rural audiences for opera through offering affordable, intimate high-quality musical and theatrical performances.
While this performance takes place at The First Old Church in Bennington, the company at Hubbard Hall is an historic opera house located at 25 E. Main St. in Cambridge, NY. For information, visit www.hubbardhall.org/opera.
Got something to say? Go for it!