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Great Performances at the Met opens season 17 with Great Performances at The Met: The Hours, a new opera from composer Kevin Puts, adapted from Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel and the 2002 Academy Award-winning film by librettist Greg Pierce, and inspired by Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” Renée Fleming makes her return to the Met after nearly five years to star in this production 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.

Great Performances at The Met: The Hours takes place in a single day as it follows the stories of three women over three time periods and cities: Clarissa Vaughan in New York City in 1999; Virginia Woolf in Richmond, England, in 1923; and Laura Brown in Los Angeles in 1949. Over the course of the opera, Woolf (DiDonato) is writing the novel, Brown (O’Hara) is reading it in the 1950s, and Vaughan (Fleming) is seemingly living through its plot in late-20th century Manhattan. Grappling with loss, isolation, and their roles in society, the three women find that they are not alone as they make shared connections that transcend time and geography. The opera uses Woolf’s and Cunningham’s magisterial prose as a departure point from which to explore ambiguities and fluidities that are heightened further by musical expression.

Cast:

Renée Fleming – Clarissa Vaughan

Joyce DiDonato – Virginia Woolf

Kelli O’Hara – Laura Brown

Denyce Graves – Sally

Kathleen Kim – Barbara/Mrs. Latch

Kyle Ketelsen – Richard

Sean Panikkar – Leonard Woolf

Brandon Cedel – Dan Brown

Kai Edgar – Richie

Sylvia D’Eramo – Kitty/Vanessa

William Burden – Louis

John Holiday – Man Under Arch/Hotel Clerk

Tony Stevenson – Walter

Atticus Ware – Julian

Lena Josephine Marano – Angelica

Patrick Scott McDermott – Quentin

Eve Gigliotti – Nelly

Creative:

Yannick Nézet-Séguin – Conductor

Phelim McDermott – Production

Kevin Puts – Music

Greg Pierce – Libretto

Tom Pye – Set and Costume Designer

Bruno Poet – Lighting Designer

Finn Ross – Projection Designer

Annie-B Parson – Choreographer

Paul Cremo – Dramaturg

Christine Baranski – Host

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