PRESS RELEASE
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS
COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS AND COMMUNICATION
January 15, 2013
CONTACT: Donna Lampkin Stephens, (501) 450-3406; donnals@uca.edu
MARIA STUARDA TO CONTINUE MET SERIES AT UCA
CONWAY — A new production of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda will continue the 2012-13 season of Captured Live from the Met @ UCA at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 20, in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall on the University of Central Arkansas campus.
According to www.metoperafamily.org, approximate running time for the tragic story of Mary, Queen of Scots, is three hours, 15 minutes.
Joyce DiDonato sings the title role of the defiant Mary in David McVicar’s Met premiere production with Elza van den Heever making her Met debut as Mary’s formidable rival, Queen Elizabeth I. Maurizio Benini conducts a cast that also includes Francesco Meli as the Earl of Leicester with Joshua Hopkins as Cecil and Matthew Rose as Talbot.
The opera is sung in Italian with Met titles in English, German and Spanish.
Maria Stuarda is the third of four high definition transmissions of Metropolitan Opera performances in the series sponsored by UCA’s College of Fine Arts and Communication.
The season will conclude with a new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto on Feb. 17.
This is the seventh season of the Met’s series, which came to UCA in 2008. According to the Met, it has expanded its worldwide distribution to 1,900 theaters in 60 countries, the largest global audience the initiative has ever reached. Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Jamaica, Madagascar, and Qatar joining the HD distribution network for the first time. To accommodate audience demand this season, dozens more cinemas have been added in Germany, Mexico, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Eric Owens, Sondra Radvanovsky and Deborah Voigt serve as hosts for the Live in HD presentations this season, conducting live interviews with cast, crew, and production teams, and introducing the popular behind-the-scenes interviews and features.
Approximately 200 seats are available for each performance at UCA. General admission tickets are $15 for the public and $5 for students with valid I.D.
To order, call UCA Ticket Central at (501) 450-3265 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday or visit www.uca.edu/reynolds.
The series is made possible by UCA’s arts fee.
For more information, call the Office of the Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication, at (501) 450-3293, e-mail jdmiller@uca.edu or visit www.uca.edu/cfac or www.metopera.org.
-30-
