

Emerging in the early 17th century, it married music and verse or other types of text to create a form of story telling unlike any other. However, after the royal opera house burned down and even after the new opera house was built in Zamalek, this art attracted little attention until such developments as the linkup with Met Opera Live a few years ago. Another opera house was constructed in Damanhur in the Beheira governorate.

It might come as a surprise to many, but opera was also available to audiences outside Egypt’s main urban centres. The Khedival Opera House in Ibrahim Pasha Square was once a widely recognised architectural gem.

Not that Egypt had been unacquainted with this art. It helped that this friend persuaded the famous American cultural institution to connect its live broadcasts to a number of Egyptian cultural institutions, such as the Cairo Opera House, the American University in Cairo, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and others. After that, I added it to the branches of knowledge I try to keep up with. Fortunately, about two decades ago, I met a member of the board of trustees of the Metropolitan Opera in New York who guided me through my first foray into opera. In fact, it was some time before my cultural interests strayed in that direction at all, as aware as I was that it was a high art like classical music and ballet. The occasion is the invitation I received to attend Don Carlos and participate in a seminar about it afterwards. The LHE/PAC is located on the Fryeburg Academy campus at 18 Bradley St., Fryeburg.Today we can take a “warrior’s rest” from the horrors of the Ukraine war and the shifts in the global order it is ushering in. Purchase tickets online at or call the box office at 20. Live in HD tickets are $28 for adults, $25 for seniors (65+), and $10 for students. The lectures are free and open to the public.Įstimated Run Time: 4 hours, 55 minutes. on Tuesday, March 22, in the LHE/PAC seminar room. Opera enthusiast Joe De Vito will host his Opera Lecture Series at 3 p.m. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe. Verdi’s masterpiece receives a monumental new staging by David McVicar that marks his 11th Met production, placing him among the most prolific and popular directors in recent Met memory. Bass Günther Groissböck and bass-baritone John Relyea are Philippe II and the Grand Inquisitor, and baritone Étienne Dupuis rounds out the all-star principal cast as Rodrigue. Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a cast of opera’s leading lights in this performance, including tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role, soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Élisabeth de Valois, and mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča as Eboli. For the first time in company history, the Met presents the original five-act French version of Verdi’s epic opera.
