The Met’s La Traviata Encores At The Grand

The Met’s La Traviata Encores At The Grand
Editor: David Mills


ELLSWORTH, ME - The New York Metropolitan Opera’s series of Hi Def encores continues at The Grand with Verdi’s “La Traviata,” starring Natalie Dessay as Violetta on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 at 6pm with a running time of 3 hrs, 7 min and 1 intermission.

The German director Willy Decker’s strikingly beautiful production, a hit when it premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 2005, is revived at the Met with soprano Natalie Dessay. “Violetta is an outlaw,” Decker says. “Society shuts her out and looks down on her as a person without feeling, without love. But the further you look into the piece, you see that it’s the other way around: she is the only person in the opera who truly loves, selflessly. Verdi follows her like an obsessed lover throughout the piece, and by the end, our sympathy too is completely on her side.”

soprano Natalie Dessay as Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata”.

Joining Dessay and Decker in bringing “La Traviata” to life is the American tenor Matthew Polenzani as Violetta’s smitten lover Alfredo and the internationally acclaimed Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Alfredo’s father Germont. Sets and costumes are by Wolfgang Gussmann and lighting by Hans Toelstede. Athol Farmer choreographs the production with principle conductor Fabio Luisi on the podium.

So bring a friend. Share the experience of a revived production the New York Times called “an involving and theatrically daring production that belongs at the Met” as The Grand presents an HD encore of “La Traviata” on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 at 6pm.

Tickets are $26 for Adults, $24 for Seniors and $17 for Students, with all seats reserved.  Call The Grand box office for tickets, or purchase online at www.grandonline.org.

The Grand is pleased to present high-definition simulcasts and encores of The New York Metropolitan Opera with support from their season partner H&R Block (in Ellsworth & Bucksport), including an HD encore of Wagner’s Ring Cycle (including a documentary film on the making of Robert Lepage’s new production called “Wagner’s Dream”) running from Friday June 1st, 2012 through Saturday June 9th, 2012.

 A full schedule can be found online at www.grandonline.org. Or find The Grand on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Grand-Auditorium/112755987339.