PORT ANGELES — Love. Murder. Paris. Switzerland. These are elements of “Fedora,” the next Live at the Met production to come to Clallam County from New York City’s Metropolitan Opera.
The lavish performance will be simulcast — broadcast live in high definition — this Saturday at the Elks Naval Lodge ballroom, 131 E. First St.
Show time is 9:55 a.m. for “Fedora,” the story of a Russian princess who falls in love with her fiancé’s murderer.
Tickets are $24 general, $18 for seniors and $14 for students and children. Patrons can order refreshments including coffee and mimosas.
To purchase tickets in advance, visit https://jffa.org/met; they will also be sold at the door on Saturday morning.
The nonprofit Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts (JFFA) and Ghostlight Productions are presenting the Live at the Met operas in Port Angeles; this is the third one of the 2022-23 season, following “La Traviata” in November and “The Hours” in December.
“We have been elated with the number of people supporting our first two Live at the Met productions. Some drive from as far away as Forks,” JFFA Executive Director Kyle LeMaire said.
He added that the shows include interviews with the conductor, set designer and performers plus insights into rehearsals, costumes and set building.
Sonya Yoncheva, the Bulgarian soprano with the title role, leads the cast; opposite Yoncheva is Polish tenor Piotr Beczala, in the role of Loris Ipanoff, the man she adores.
“Fedora” is sung in Italian with English subtitles — and it’s packed with show-stopping arias, the Met announcement said.
The story is set first in a palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, then in a ballroom in Paris and finally at a villa in the Swiss Alps.
Its cast and crew have come to New York from around the globe: Yoncheva is from Plovdiv, Bulgaria; conductor Marco Armiliato is from Genoa, Italy; Beczala comes from Czechowice-Dziedzice, Poland, and baritone Lucas Meachem is from Raleigh, N.C.
In a New York Times interview, Beczala compared “Fedora,” with its torrid story, to a crime-thriller movie. The Times notes the drama features the secret police, a lot of letters and telegrams and a necklace filled with poison.
“The whole confection is a sort of an operatic guilty pleasure,” director David McVicar told the Times.
For him, “Fedora” is not unlike binge-watching “Downton Abbey.”
Italian composer Umberto Giordano created “Fedora,” and the New York Metropolitan Opera premiered it in December 1906 with Enrico Caruso as Loris.
The Juan de Fuca Foundation and Ghostlight Productions will host five more Live at the Met opera simulcasts, from March through June.
They include “Champion,” with Ryan Speedo Green as a young boxer rising from obscurity to fame, on April 29.
To learn more, see metopera.org/season/in-cinemas.
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend.
