Tag: The MET Live in HD

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Arts Culture

Pick: Fire Shut Up in My Bones

The opera adaptation of Charles Blow's memoir made history as the first opera by a Black composer. Photo: Supplied photo

On fire: Growing up in rural Louisiana, journalist Charles Blow never imagined his life story would one day be portrayed on the world’s most popular opera stage. His memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, a treacherous story of dysfunction and abuse, opened the 2021-22 Metropolitan Opera season. The adaptation by Grammy Award–winning jazz musician and composer Terence Blanchard made history as the first opera by a Black composer (and Black librettist Kasi Lemmons). Victory Hall Opera’s Miriam Gordon-Stewart hosts a lecture before The Met: Live in HD screening. 

Saturday 10/23. $18-25, 12:55pm. The Paramount Theater, 103 E. Main St.,  Downtown Mall. theparamount.net. 

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Akhnaten

Phillip Glass' Akhnaten premieres in The MET Live in HD at the Paramount on Saturday. Image: Richard Hubert Smith

Ancient outlier: Phillip Glass’ mystical, trance-like opera Akhnaten transcends time to explore the life and psyche of the 13th-century B.C. pharaoh of ancient Egypt. The Met Live in HD’s premiere illuminates the fundamental ways that Akhnaten tried to change the way his people thought about their gods and spirituality by using creative lighting, soaring orchestral arrangements, and acrobatics. It’s part of the composer’s series dedicated to understanding radical men who thought differently than others of their time, and reviewers have called the show, led by acclaimed countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, “fabulously beautiful” with a “haunting impact.”

Saturday 11/23. $18-25, 12:55pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 979-1333.