Next season's operas already lined up
By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer
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| Lea Woods Friedman, Papagena in "The Magic Flute" earlier this season, will play Valencienne in next season's "The Merry Widow."
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Its 2003 season is still winding up at Blaisdell Concert Hall this week, where final performances of Puccini's "La Bohème" unfold tomorrow and Thursday. Meanwhile, HOT already has lined up and cast principal voices for its 2004 trio of shows, beginning next January:
• Curtain times: 8 p.m. Fridays, 4 p.m. Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and the lone Thursday performance • Season tickets: $81 to $288, with early-bird rates ($73 to $260) available through April 1 • Single tickets: $29 to $100, not available until fall • Reservations: HOTline at 596-7858 or (800) 836-7372; also at the HOT box office, 985 Waimanu St., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays • Information: 596-7372 or www.hawaiiopera.org
• "Otello," the Guiseppe Verdi-Arrigo Boito collaboration based on the Shakespearean tragedy, plays Jan. 30, Feb. 1 and 3. Henry Akina, HOT general and artistic director, will direct; Ivan Törz will conduct the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra; Sergei Nayda will star as Otello and Gary Simpson will be Iago. The opera is set in 15th-century Cyprus, where Otello, a mercenary general in the Venetian army, finds his undoing in jealousy and vengeance. Wrongly convinced that his wife is unfaithful, he becomes consumed with jealousy and strangles her; realizing the tragedy, he stabs himself.
Hawai'i opera season information
• "Così Fan Tutte," the Mozart favorite, plays Feb. 13, 15 and 17. Richard Harrell will direct; a conductor will be named. Gun-Brit Barkmin will be Fioridigili, Ning Liang is Dorabella, Barton Green is Ferrando and Christopheren Nomura is Guglielmo. The tale involves a bachelor who bets two young officers that the sisters they are engaged to are fickle and flighty; the officers test the allegations by pretending to go off to war and return under the guise of Albanian playboys. This battle of the sexes winds up with the sisters failing to see through the disguises and lured into flirtation, reflecting the chancy nature of romance.
• "The Merry Widow," the Franz Lehár operatic treasure, plays Feb. 27, 29 and March 2 and 4. Brian Deedrick directs, Mike Flint conducts. Diane Alexander appears as Hanna Glawari, Lea Woods Friedman as Valencienne and Louis Otay as Danilo. Set in late-19th-century Paris, the production boasts elegant ladies, eligible bachelors, Maxim's can-can dancers and bubbly champagne, evoking the glamour and glitter of high society during the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
