It has played to sold-out audiences since it premiered on stage at New York’s Lincoln Center on Nov. 22. PBS Newshour called it, “The opera event of the year.” A Variety review claimed, “it’s Woolf who’ll make you swoon.”
Now, whether we can get to New York or not, we have the chance to see the Metropolitan Opera’s version of Michael Cunningham’s 1998 Pulitzer prize-winning novel The Hours, which was based on Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925).
See it in a theater near you
How? The opera version of The Hours is coming to theaters around the country as a Fathom event and as part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series. Tickets for this three-hour-plus event range from $18 to $24.
The live performance in English will screen at 12:55 p.m EST on Dec. 10 with encore showings at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. EST on Dec. 14.
Search for the theater closest to your location on The Hours page on the Fathom Events website.
Trio of heroines
Soprano Renée Fleming, soprano Kelli O’Hara and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato play the roles of the opera’s trio of heroines. Kevin Puts is the composer and Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.
The opera is set in London suburb Richmond in 1923, LA in 1949, and Manhattan at the end of the twentieth century.
“The mere fact of this opera’s existence does an interesting thing: It cements ‘The Hours’ as a foundational piece of contemporary art,” according to Daniel D’Addario’s review in Variety. The Hours is on The Met stage through Dec. 15.
Rave reviews, a synopsis, and a program
You can read more rave reviews from critics, prepare for the performance by reading a synopsis, and download a program.
Woolf’s words live on through the generations, and the concerns and troubled thoughts of women echo, too, no matter how much progress seems to be made in the world outside Virginia, Laura, and Clarissa’s minds. – “‘The Hours,’ in Its Latest Adaptation, Is a Stunning Triumph for the Met: Opera Review,” Variety.
[…] of “The Hours” and didn’t catch it when it was shown live or recorded at your local theater, you still have a chance to watch it — right in the comfort of your own living […]