LA Metropolitan Opera Performs Verdi's IL TROVATORE, 11/2

Live opera, "up close and personal," returns for four days to Southern California with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Opera's (LAMet) November 2013 production of Verdi's fiery masterpiece, IL TROVATORE. The mad gypsies and love-sick troubadours of Verdi's imagination will come bristling to life at All Soul's Chapel at Good Samaritan Hospital downtown Saturday and Sunday, November 2nd and 3rd at 3pm. The show then moves to Santa Monica and the Church in Ocean Park for performances Saturday November 9th at 7pm, and Sunday November 10th at 3pm. For tickets and more information visit The LAMet's website at www.losangelesmet.com, or call 310-570-6448. Suggested donation is $25 per ticket in advance, $35 at the door.

Launched in 2008, The Los Angeles Metropolitan Opera is the brainchild of sopranos Ella Lee and Linda Jackson. Both accomplished performers, Lee with a 30-year career in European capitals and Jackson, home-grown and locally trained, recognized that there was a vast underserved audience missing out on the glories of grand opera, principally due to the prohibitive ticket prices facing today's opera-goers, and by the distances one must often travel to large urban performance centers. So they set out to create an alternative.

Labors of love, their non-profit productions of opera classics feature professional singers and musicians who devote their time and talents mostly free of charge so that ticket prices can fit the entertainment budgets of both opera aficionados and first-timers alike.

Compared to the $132 average ticket price of the Los Angeles Opera, tickets for

the LAMet production of IL TROVATORE are $25 each, with Group Rates available upon request.

Sadly, Ms. Lee passed away in September 2013 (see related piece) and the company will dedicate this IL TROVATORE run to her memory. In Memoriam donations to the LAMet will be gratefully received at the above number and web address.

LAMet productions concentrate on the magnificence of the human voice and are presented in intimate settings where no one sits farther from the performer than a softball pitch. IL TROVATORE will be no exception to that mission. After a recent production of MADAME BUTTERFY, one attendee said, "I've heard plenty of operas from the mezzanine and rear orchestras of huge opera houses. It's a whole different thrill to have those voices in your midst. I felt it in my chest-amazing!" At The Church in Ocean Park, Santa Monica, and in the Romanesque All Souls Chapel at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downtown Los Angeles, attendees will find open seating in close proximity to the un-amplified singers and musicians.

Supertitles (the opera's lyrics) will be projected in English at all performances.

All Souls Chapel at Good Samaritan Hospital is located at 637 Lucas Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90017. The Church in Ocean Park is located at 235 Hill Street, Santa Monica, CA 90405.

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