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Archive for the ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ Category

Watch Met Opera’s “The Hours” at home, thanks to PBS

Posted in events, Mrs. Dalloway, The Hours, theater, tagged , , , , on Thursday 16 March 2023| Leave a Comment »

If you missed the Metropolitan Opera’s live performances 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 room.

The much-lauded new opera will be the premiere episode of the 17th season of Great Performances at the Met on PBS. The first airing will be Friday, March 17, at 9 p.m. ET. In my area, it will also air Sunday, March 19, at 5 p.m. and Tuesday, March 21, at 8 p.m. All times are Eastern Standard.

Viewers in the U.S.A. can check local listings for the broadcast schedule of their PBS affiliate in their area.

The sold-out opera event of the year

“The Hours” played to sold-out audiences during its run at New York’s Lincoln Center from Nov. 22 through Dec. 15, 2022.

PBS Newshour called it, “The opera event of the year.” A Variety review claimed, “it’s Woolf who’ll make you swoon.”

Composer Kevin Puts adapted the opera from Michael Cunningham’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel and the 2002 Academy Award-winning film by librettist Greg Pierce.

Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925), it stars Renée Fleming alongside Tony winner Kelli O’Hara and opera star Joyce DiDonato. Phelim McDermott directs the production with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. Christine Baranski hosts.

Get ready with reviews, synopsis, program

The opera uses Woolf’s and Cunningham’s prose as a departure point from which to explore the novels’ ambiguities and fluidities that are heightened further by musical expression, according to the PBS website.

You can read more rave reviews from critics, prepare for the performance by reading a synopsis, and download a program.

 

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See Met Opera “The Hours” at a movie theater near you

Posted in events, Mrs. Dalloway, music, tagged , , , , on Tuesday 6 December 2022| 1 Comment »

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.

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Opening of Mrs. Dalloway set to music by Max Richter

Posted in Mrs. Dalloway, music on Saturday 30 July 2022| 1 Comment »

Max Richter’s release of his 33-minute ballet “Exiles” has been out for a year, but I just discovered it. On it, is “filler” that includes a previously unreleased outtake from his ballet “Woolf Works,” inspired by the writings of Virginia Woolf.

Of note for readers of Woolf is the eight-minute piece “Flowers of Herself,” which  provides an orchestral soundtrack for the opening of Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway. It includes the tolling of Big Ben by tubular bells and provides the musical energy of a bustling street scene as we imagine Clarissa winding through the streets of London on her walk to “buy the flowers herself.”

According to BBC World Service, as “One of his most intricate and attractive orchestral pieces, “Flowers” receives an outstanding performance by the young musicians of the Baltic Sea Philharmonic led by Kristjan Järvi.

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Looking back on #DallowayDay 2022

Posted in Dalloway Day, events, Mrs. Dalloway, tagged , on Monday 20 June 2022| Leave a Comment »

Woolfians around the globe celebrated Dalloway Day last week, a day commemorating Clarissa Dalloway’s walk to “buy the flowers herself” in preparation for her party that evening.

The official date, as established in 2018 by both the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain and the International Virginia Woolf Society, is the third Wednesday in June, which this year fell on June 15. But events celebrating Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway are not usually restricted to one day, and this year was no exception.

Here is a rundown of some of the events that took place this year, along with a few notable #DallowayDay tweets, some of which share interesting resources.

 

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BBC Radio 4 short work includes Virginia Woolf

Posted in Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf audio, tagged , , , , on Saturday 30 April 2022| Leave a Comment »

Got time for a short broadcast with a Virginia Woolf connection? Yesterday’s BBC Radio 4 Short Works fits the bill and is available online.

“Dance of the Wild,” a story by Amanthi Harris, is set in contemporary Alpujarras in Spain. That’s where Gerald Brenan spent his summers and where Virginia Woolf visited him. The story focuses on a young woman who “sees” and “hears” Woolf talking to herself about creating Mrs. Dalloway.

They seem very real here, don’t they? – “Dance of the Wild”

The Woolf character’s words are based on Woolf’s diary and the manuscripts of the novel held in the British Library and the New York Public Library.

This news comes from the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain. The 14-minute reading, which will be available online for more than one year, can be found on BBC Sounds.

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