The Met Opera Wades Into the Water With Virginia Woolf
Left to right, Joyce DiDonato as Virginia Woolf, René Fleming as Clarissa Vaughan and Kelli O'Hara as Laura Brown. Photos By Florian Kalotay (DiDonato); Timothy White / Decca (Fleming)

The Met Opera Wades Into the Water With Virginia Woolf

‘The Hours’ comes to the stage of The Met Opera in an original, world-premiere adaption of the 1998 novel, composed by Pulitzer Prize-winning  American composer Kevin Puts and directed by Phelim McDermott

“There is no comfort, it seems in the world of objects, and Clarissa fears that art, even the greatest of it,” Michael Cunningham wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “belongs stubbornly to the world of objects.” Cunningham writes of a single day in the life of three women — each to varying degrees of ordinariness, separated by time, connected in ways they will never know, by an object, a piece of art, traveling through their lives, and not necessarily a comfort.

The “object” is “Mrs. Dalloway,” Virginia Woolf’s exemplary novel of the modernist age, the story of single day which begins, of course, with a mission to “buy the flowers herself.” The women in Cunningham’s day are Clarissa Vaughan, a 51-year-old at the end of the 1990s, stepping out in June on W 10th St., who embodies the traits of the fictional Clarissa Dalloway, Laura Brown, a housewife at the end of the 1940s who is reading the novel, and finally, there is Virginia herself. This is Virginia the obsessive artist, empty stomach filled with coffee, in the years when she was still writing, before she filled her pocket with stones and walked into the River Ouse in Sussex, swept away by the current. The suicide letter she left behind for her husband, Leonard Woolf read, “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again.”

The New York of Cunningham's 1990s is oddly still very much the Manhattan of today, a boiling pot of fervent street life, of eccentricity and ambition. The shadow of the 1980s AIDS crisis looms large but doesn't dampen debates on genderqueer radicalism versus gay assimilation, the role of moneyed patrons to support low-selling, but intellectually vital art,  the ever-present need to prostrate oneself with acts of good liberalism, and our inability to understand mental illness.

“The Hours” will broadcast as part of The Met Opera Live in HD on Dec. 10 at both Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Mass., and The Moviehouse in Millerton, N.Y.

Courtesy of Macmillan

Courtesy of Macmillan

Courtesy of Macmillan

Courtesy of Macmillan

Latest News

Housatonic softball beats Webutuck 16-3

Haley Leonard and Khyra McClennon looked on as HVRHS pulled ahead of Webutuck, May 2.

Riley Klein

FALLS VILLAGE — The battle for the border between Housatonic Valley Regional High School and Webutuck High School Thursday, May 2, was won by HVRHS with a score of 16-3.

The New Yorkers played their Connecticut counterparts close early on and commanded the lead in the second inning. Errors plagued the Webutuck Warriors as the game went on, while the HVRHS Mountaineers stayed disciplined and finished strong.

Keep ReadingShow less
Mountaineers fall 3-0 to Wamogo

Anthony Foley caught Chase Ciccarelli in a rundown when HVRHS played Wamogo Wednesday, May 1.

Riley Klein

LITCHFIELD — Housatonic Valley Regional High School varsity baseball dropped a 3-0 decision to Wamogo Regional High School Wednesday, May 1.

The Warriors kept errors to a minimum and held the Mountaineers scoreless through seven innings. HVRHS freshman pitcher Chris Race started the game strong with no hits through the first three innings, but hiccups in the fourth gave Wamogo a lead that could not be caught.

Keep ReadingShow less
The artist called ransome

‘Migration Collage' by ransome

Alexander Wilburn

If you claim a single sobriquet as your artistic moniker, you’re already in a club with some big names, from Zendaya to Beyoncé to the mysterious Banksy. At Geary, the contemporary art gallery in Millerton founded by New Yorkers Jack Geary and Dolly Bross Geary, a new installation and painting exhibition titled “The Bitter and the Sweet” showcases the work of the artist known only as ransome — all lowercase, like the nom de plume of the late Black American social critic bell hooks.

Currently based in Rhinebeck, N.Y., ransome’s work looks farther South and farther back — to The Great Migration, when Jim Crow laws, racial segregation, and the public violence of lynching paved the way for over six million Black Americans to seek haven in northern cities, particularly New York urban areas, like Brooklyn and Baltimore. The Great Migration took place from the turn of the 20th century up through the 1970s, and ransome’s own life is a reflection of the final wave — born in North Carolina, he found a new home in his youth in New Jersey.

Keep ReadingShow less
Four Brothers ready for summer season

Hospitality, ease of living and just plain fun are rolled into one for those who are intrigued by the leisure-time Caravana experience at the family-owned Four Brothers Drive-in in Amenia. John Stefanopoulos, pictured above, highlights fun possibilities offered by Hotel Caravana.

Leila Hawken

The month-long process of unwrapping and preparing the various features at the Four Brothers Drive-In is nearing completion, and the imaginative recreational destination will be ready to open for the season on Friday, May 10.

The drive-in theater is already open, as is the Snack Shack, and the rest of the recreational features are activating one by one, soon to be offering maximum fun for the whole family.

Keep ReadingShow less