The Hours, a work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, will be broadcast live to theaters nationwide by Fathom Events on Saturday, December 10 at 12:55 PM ET as part of the The Met: Live in HD series after playing to sold-out crowds since its critically praised opening last week.
The Hours, adapted from Michael Cunningham’s acclaimed book and movie of the same name, features the eagerly anticipated Met stage comeback of soprano Renée Fleming, Broadway star Kelli O’Hara, and renowned mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as the opera’s three heroines: Clarissa Vaughan, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf.
With Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium for this production by Phelim McDermott, the cast also features mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves as Sally, Clarissa’s partner; soprano Kathleen Kim as Barbara and Mrs. Latch; soprano Sylvia D’Eramo as Kitty and Vanessa; countertenor John Holiday as the Man Under the Arch and the Hotel Clerk; bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen as Richard, Clarissa’s best friend who is dying of AIDS; treble Kai Edgar as the young Richard; tenor William Burden as Louis, Richard’s ex-boyfriend; tenor Sean Panikkar as Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf’s husband; and bass-baritone Brandon Cedel as Dan Brown, Laura Brown’s husband.
Cunningham’s book, which was influenced by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, was first made into an Oscar-winning movie starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman. Its plot, which is now a potent operatic libretto, concerns three women from different eras: literary editor Clarissa Vaughan (Fleming), a New Yorker haunted by the past as she plans a party to honor her best friend who passed away in 1999; Los Angeles housewife Laura Brown (O’Hara), who longs to flee her family in 1949; and Virginia Woolf (DiDonato), in London in 1923, as she struggles with mental illness.
Along with McDermott, who most recently received plaudits for his production of Philip Glass’ Akhnaten, the creative team also includes Tom Pye, Bruno Poet, Finn Ross, Annie-B Parson, who is making her Met debut as a choreographer, and dramaturg Paul Cremo. The broadcast’s host is actress and theatrical star Christine Baranski.
