Ridgefield Playhouse to Screen Met Opera Live's MANON LESCAUT, 3/5

The Met stage ignites when soprano Kristine Opolais and tenor Jonas Kaufmann join forces in Puccini's obsessive love story. Straight from NYC's Lincoln Center, the Ridgefield Playhouse presents The Met Opera Live in HD: Puccini's Manon Lescaut on Saturday, March 5 at 12:55 p.m. Opolais sings the title role of the country girl who transforms herself into a Parisian temptress, while Kaufmann is the dashing student who desperately woos her. Director Richard Eyre places the action in occupied France in a film noir setting. "Desperate passion" is the phrase Puccini himself used to describe the opera that confirmed his position as the preeminent Italian opera composer of his day. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the new staging, which also stars Massimo Cavalletti as Manon's cousin, Lescaut, and Brindley Sherratt as Geronte, her wealthy older lover. The AAA Northeast at The Playhouse: Live in HD series is underwritten by Jeanne Cook, Anita and Nicholas Donofrio, Liz and Steven Goldstone, Sabina and Walter Slavin, with support from The Ridgefield Press and Whistle Stop Bakery. Media sponsor is WSHU 91.1fm.

World premiere: Teatro Regio, Turin, 1893. Met premiere: January 18, 1907. Few operas have surpassed Manon Lescaut in the depiction of the urgency of young love. The French tale of a beautiful young woman destroyed by her conflicting needs for love and luxury had already inspired Massenet's Manon (1884), a relatively new and immensely popular work at the time of Manon Lescaut's premiere. Puccini made the story his own and infused it with a new level of frank emotion and a flood of melody. The opera was his first great success, leading George Bernard Shaw to name him "the successor to Verdi."

For tickets ($25, $20 Members/Seniors, $15 Students - tickets are free for children 18 and under) call or visit the box office, 203-438-5795 or go online at ridgefieldplayhouse.org. Tickets are free for anyone 18 and under. The Ridgefield Playhouse, located at 80 East Ridge Road in Ridgefield, is a not for profit 501 (c)(3) whose mission is to present a variety of performing arts to the community and the surrounding area that they can enjoy and experience at a varied price point.

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