The Met Opera of New York will give its first live concert next Sunday before the public, after more than 14 months of virtual events forced by the coronavirus pandemic, the institution reported in a statement.
The organization’s orchestra and choir members, along with prominent soloists and the conductor, Yannick Ne´zet-Se´guin, will offer two recitals called “A Concert for New York” at the Knockdown Center in Queens, which includes songs by Mozart and Verdi. Terence Blachard’s opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” will also be performed, with which the Met Opera on September 27, and that will be the first composed by an African American who is heard in the institution.
The two concerts next Sunday, which will take place in front of an audience of just 150 people, will feature soloists Angel Blue, Stephen Costello, Justin Austin and Eric Owens, as well as a 12-member choir and a 20-member orchestra. musicians. The Met Opera, which claims to have lost $ 150 million in revenue as a result of the pandemic, wants to join the reopening of New York in September, but the organization has not yet managed to reach an agreement with the orchestra members’ union, although it has He has done it with the soloists and with the choir.
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“As the largest performing arts company in the city, we are determined to participate in the reopening of New York,” the institution’s executive director, Peter Gelb, said in the statement, admitting however that “many have yet to agree things with the unions “and that the facilities continue to be prepared for next season.
May 16 will be the first concert with a present audience of the Met Opera since March 11, 2020, which has tried to maintain a certain presence with paid recitals that were transmitted over the internet that began last summer.
EFE
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