Following the popularity achieved among local audiences of screening productions from the world’s top international theatre houses in previous years, Eden Culture is once again proud to present a new schedule for the 2013-14 season.
With a selection of both live and pre-recorded performances, this year’s list includes a variety of breathtaking operas and ballets from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, as well as London’s Royal Opera House. Opening Eden Culture’s new season is Giacomo Puccini’s powerful opera, Turandot. Showing live from the Royal Opera House on 17 September at 8:15pm, Turandot tells the dramatic tale of disguised identities, riddles, ritual executions and a triumphant love.
Showing exclusively in Eden Cinema’s showcase theatre, Cinema 11, audiences are to experience that same authentic feel as they do watching these stunning shows abroad. Through the use of dimmed theatre lighting and enhanced sound, such world-class performances are sure to delight.
The schedule includes the following productions:
Turandot – Live from the Royal Opera House on Tuesday 17 September 2013 at 8.15pm
The Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season gets off to a dramatic start with the return of Puccini’s musically sublime final opera Turandot – a tale of disguised identities, riddles, ritual executions and powerful, triumphant love. Andrei Serban’s production of this dark Oriental fairytale is spectacular, with Sally Jacobs’s magnificent sets and elaborate masks, as well as costumes inspired by traditional Chinese theatre. One of the greatest Turandot singers today, Lise Lindstrom, makes her Royal Opera debut. Joining her on the stunning stage of the Royal Opera house is Marco Berti, a wonderful Puccinian singer, in the role of Prince Calaf.
Spartacus – Live from the Bolshoi Theatre on Sunday 20 October 2013 at 5pm
One of the Bolshoi’s greatest masterpieces, this spectacular ballet recounts the epic adventures of Spartacus and Phrygia as they are captured by the Roman army and condemned to slavery. After becoming a gladiator, Spartacus then foments a legendary rebellion. Spartacus is one of the most famous works by Aram Khachaturyan and is considered one of the greatest ballets in the Bolshoi repertoire since the 1960s. A production with spectacular choreography and scenery, it is Yuri Grigorovich’s version that remains the most critically acclaimed.
Les Vêpres Siciliennes – Live from the Royal Opera House on Monday 4 November 2013 at 6.45pm
The Royal Opera presents Verdi’s grand opera Les Vêpres Siciliennes for the very first time – and in a major new production. Antonio Pappano conducts a star cast that includes Bryan Hymel, Marina Polavskaya, Erwin Schrott and Michael Volle. Paris in 1855, when the opera was first performed, provides the starting point for the interpretation by celebrated Norwegian born director Stefan Herheim, making his Covent Garden debut. The opera ballet plays a significant role too, with Johann Kobborg choreographing for dancers from The Royal Ballet and Royal Danish Ballet. The story is set to impassioned and dramatic music, rich in showpiece arias and ensembles and with striking choruses. Through this monumental operatic work, Herheim takes us over the threshold from the reality of the opera house into the dreamlike stories of the operas they present.
The Nutcracker – Live from the Royal Opera House on Thursday 12 December 2013 at 8.15pm
From the very first notes of Tchaikovsky’s overture to The Nutcracker, a sense of mystery and magic pervades the theatre as Herr Drosselmeyer sets in train the events that will see his beloved nephew, Hans Peter, freed from the enchantment of the evil Mouse King by the resourceful Clara. The Nutcracker unfolds over two glorious acts. For Act I it is Christmas Eve and we are brought to a party at which Drosselmeyer gives young Clara a nutcracker doll – beginning a night that includes a magically growing Christmas tree, a midnight battle of toy soldiers at which the Nutcracker defeats the villainous Mouse King and his army of mice, and a headlong pas de deux in which Clara and Hans Peter meet and celebrate their triumph before being enveloped in a magical snowstorm. Act II whisks the young pair off to the Kingdom of Sweets, where they are entertained by the Sugar Plum Fairy with her handsome Prince and her glittering court in a series of dazzling dances. Peter Wright’s classic production, first seen at Covent Garden in 1984, is an essential part of Christmas for audiences of all ages.
Parsifal – Live from the Royal Opera House on Wednesday 18 December 2013 at 5.45pm
Description: Evident in the new production of Parsifal, Wagner’s profound meditation on guilt, death and possible redemption is always a remarkable event. Directed by Stephen Langridge, designed by Alison Chitty and conducted by Antonio Pappano, this new spectacular is especially exciting. An extraordinary cast of Wagnerian singers come together: Heldentenor Simon O’Neill, recently acclaimed for his Siegmund, sings Parsifal; the magnificent bass René Pape as Gurnemanz; Gerald Finley makes his role debut as Amfortas, Willard White sings the sorcerer Klingsor, and versatile singer-actress Angela Denoke is an intriguing choice for Kundry.
Sleeping Beauty – Deferred live from the Bolshoi Theatre on Friday 27 December 2013at 4pm
Cursed at birth by evil fairy Carabosse, Princess Aurora descends into a deep slumber on the day of her 16th birthday and only the kiss of a prince will awaken her. Based on Charles Perrault’s classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty has been hugely successful since its premiere in 1890. Marius Petipa's masterpiece is one of the most popular and accomplished choreographic works in the classical repertoire. The new version of this world famous love story by Yuri Grigorovich will captivate the whole family and fairy tale-lovers during the Christmas season.
Jewels – Live from the Bolshoi Theatre on Sunday 19 January 2014 at 4pm
Inspired by New York’s 5th Avenue famous jewellery shops, this triptych is a tribute to women and to the cities of Paris, New York and Saint Petersburg. Choreographed in 1967 in New York City, this ballet with precious stone and jewel-like costumes, celebrates the three cities and three dance schools which forged the elegance, aesthetic and style of choreographer George Balanchine. Emeralds was conceived as a poetic tribute to the French romantic school, Rubies to the American tradition of Broadway musicals, whilst Diamonds honors the virtuosity of classical Russian dancers.
Lost Illusions – Live from the Bolshoi Theatre on Sunday 2 February 2014
at 4pm
Based on French writer Honoré de Balzac’s novel, Lost Illusions is a new ballet created in Moscow in 2011 by Alexei Ratmansky, with dramaturgy reviewed by French actor, writer and director Guillaume Gallienne. The ballet tells a tantalizing story of passion, ambition and disappointment, with 19th century Paris as a backdrop.
Don Giovanni – Live from the Royal Opera House on Wednesday 12 February 2014 at 7.45pm
Mozart’s sublime tragic comedy offers boundless scope for directors, and Kasper Holten has chosen it to follow his directorial debut of Eugene Onegin. He wants to shift the emphasis from Don Giovanni’s sex life into a darker place, showing Giovanni’s womanizing as an attempt to stave off his own mortality. Each woman he seduces represents a life he could have had. Though it is a dark piece, Holten intends to handle it with a light touch. The superb cast of Don Giovanni includes, Mariusz Kwiecien, one of the world’s leading Don Giovannis, Alex Esposito, a fresh, vigorous Leporello and acclaimed French soprano Véronique Gens. Conductor Nicola Luisotti and set designer Es Devlin continue to bring this exceptional opera to life.
The Sleeping Beauty – Live from the Royal Opera House on Wednesday 19 March 2014 at 8.15pm
First staged in St Petersburg in 1890, The Sleeping Beauty is the pinnacle of classical ballet: a perfect marriage of Petipa’s choreography and Tchaikovsky’s music and a glorious challenge for every dancer on stage. It is also the Royal Ballet’s signature work. To mark the company’s 75th birthday in 2006, Monica Mason and Christopher Newton revitalized its landmark 1946 production, which re-established Petipa’s choreography as recorded by Imperial Ballet régisseur Nicholas Sergeyev, to a scenario and staging developed by Ninette de Valois herself, founder of The Royal Ballet. With Oliver Messel’s gorgeous original designs wonderfully re-imagined by Peter Farmer, and additional choreography by Anthony Dowell, Christopher Wheeldon and Frederick Ashton, today’s Sleeping Beauty not only captures the mood of the original but shows that this is very much a living work for the Royal Ballet, growing and changing with the Company while celebrating its past.
The Golden Age – Live from the Bolshoi Theatre on Sunday 30 March 2014 at 5pm
Set in the 1920s The Golden Age is an original and delightful ballet with jazz and cabaret musical parodies. Set in a seaside town in the south of the Soviet Union, where trade and mafia are flourishing; Boris falls in love with Rita, a cabaret dancer at The Golden Age and girlfriend of the local gangster. Created by Yuri Grigorovich for the Bolshoi, audiences will be fascinated by the ballet with its frantic pace, passionate intrigue and the variety of its dance styles including classical, neo-classical, free, grotesque, folk and acrobatic dance. In the midst of this magical whirlwind, Boris and Rita’s love is doused in poetic lyricism.
The Winter’s Tale – Live from the Royal Opera House on Monday 28 April 2014 at 8.15pm
Following his delightful full-length ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Christopher Wheeldon continues his highly successful collaboration with designer Bob Crowley and composer Joby Talbot to create his first ballet based on Shakespeare’s late romance, The Winter’s Tale. The story follows the destruction of marriage through consuming jealousy, the abandonment of a child, and a seemingly hopeless love. Yet through remorse and regret – and after a statue comes miraculously to life – the ending is one of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is powerful material for ballet, with a story that allows for the portrayal of intense emotions between and within the characters, and the opportunity for the company to create not just new central characters but the whole world around them.
Manon Lescaut – Live from the Royal Opera House on Tuesday 24 June 2014 at 7.45pm
This early Puccini masterpiece makes a welcome return to Covent Garden after an absence of over 20 years, in a new production by Jonathan Kent under the baton of Music Director Antonio Pappano. The exciting Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais sings the title role. A consummate Puccini soprano Opolais caused a sensation as Madama Butterfly in 2011, and with Manon Lescaut, the bold but impressionable heroine will portray a character different to that which audiences are used to. She is matched in star power by Jonas Kaufmann as her lover, Des Grieux, and Christopher Maltman as her cynical brother Lescaut. This is a much anticipated new production, and Kent’s vision of a young girl who faces temptation in the big city will surely resonate with today’s audience.
Tickets are priced at €23 per adult and a mere €10 for children aged 16 and under. Various season specials and discounts are being offered from the box office, including 30% off when purchasing a full season ticket of live operas and ballets. The percentage of discount is applicable for live performances only and excludes Bolshoi’s pre-recorded Sleeping Beauty. A 25% discount is available when purchasing eight performances from any one ‘house’ and a 15% discount on the purchase of six performances. Terms and conditions apply. Special discounts for school bookings are also being offered. For additional information about Eden Culture screenings and group discounts, please contact Eden Cinemas via www.edencinemas.com.mt