Year round, Enzian allows Orlando guests and visitors the opportunity to experience independent theater, cult films, and hosts one of the largest film festivals in the country. Earlier this week, Enzian’s annual Opera and Ballet “Big Screen Summer Series” began. Running until September 19th, the series features an extraordinary lineup of performances filmed in high definition and showcased in spectacular digital cinema.
According to Enzian President Henry Maldonado “This series gives you the best seat in the house at some of the world’s greatest venues,in HD with surround sound on the Enzian big screen bring you up close in an intimate and dynamic presentation.” Opera and ballet fans can purchase a season pass to all four performances and receive discounted admission, as well as a complimentary glass of house wine at each show. All performances can also be purchased individually.
Co-Presented by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, the Opera and Ballet on the Big Screen series will feature the following events:
IL TROVATORE
Saturday, June 20th at 11AM
This musical feast from Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden stars Anna Netrebko and Plácido Domingo in debut roles at the head of an impressive ensemble directed by Daniel Barenboim. Philipp Stölzl, an internationally acclaimed stage and screen director blends historical and modern elements into a colorful, Alice in Wonderland-inspired production, brilliantly realizing Verdi’s filmic shifts between past and present in surrealistic video projections and a fascinating choreography of scenic lighting. Musical America writes “the aesthetic creates a tone of classic and comic” and Le Monde praises the production’s “glamorous display and virtuosic stylistic mix for this staging with Philipp Stölzl’s signature”. The lavish period costumes by Ursula Kundra and “the expert lighting by Olaf Freese” (Express, UK) make their own contribution to this brilliant staging.
Sung in Italian | 2013 | Directed by Philipp Stölzl | 145 min
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE
Saturday, August 15th at 11AM
Undoubtedly the most famous opera buffa in the history of music and an eternal source of delight, Rossini’s remarkable opera was composed in only a few weeks. Although the premiere, performed on February 10, 1816 in Rome was a resounding flop, the opera was quickly revived on February 22, when “The Barber” received rapturous applause. And indeed, how could Rossini have escaped this initial resistance? He pitted the old world (through Bartolo and his authoritarianism) against the new world; old opera against modern opera. With its incredible verve and youthful cheer, this was the work that built Rossini’s brilliant international reputation. With this new production of the ever-popular masterpiece, Italian stage director Damiano Michieletto makes his Paris Opera debut.
Sung in Italian | 2014 | Directed by Damiano Michieletto | 176 min
Ballet on the Big Screen:
Co-Presented by Orlando Ballet
BALANCHINE | MILLEPIED
Saturday, July 18th at 11AM
Alongside Balanchine’s Palais de Cristal, set to music by Bizet, Benjamin Millepied adapts Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. Philippe Jordan will be accompanying the Paris Opera Ballet for the first time. This encounter between two great French composers and two choreographers from the New York City Ballet, its founder George Balanchine and former student Benjamin Millepied, highlights the similarities and dissonances between them. In 1947, George Balanchine paid tribute to the company and to the French tradition with his first production for the Paris Opera Ballet, Le Palais de Cristal, in which he choreographed an early work by Georges Bizet, the Symphony in C. Characterized by its architectural design and sense of dialogue with the music, this ballet is a model of academic virtuosity, to which Christian Lacroix, an artisan of light and color, has brought new shape. Benjamin Millepied’s third creation for the Paris Opera Ballet, in collaboration with the conceptual artist Daniel Buren, revisits the myth of Daphnis and Chloé. In the tradition of Balanchine, Millepied draws his inspiration from the rhythms and colors of Ravel’s “choreographic symphony” for chorus and orchestra. Accompanying the dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet for the first time, Philippe Jordan conducts these masterpieces of French music.
2014 | 100 min
LA SYLPHIDE
Saturday, September 19th at 11AM
Created in 1832 at the Paris Opera, Philippe Taglioni’s La Sylphide heralded the advent of the romantic ballet. The delicate and ethereal dancer Marie Taglioni played the unattainable, dream-conjured sylph, alongside Joseph Mazilier. In the point shoes and long diaphanous tutus she wore in La Sylphide, the ballerina became an emblematic figure. The libretto by Adolphe Nourrit was inspired by romantic tales recounting the impossible love between a human and a supernatural creature. The tormented young James finds himself torn between the promise of a comfortable life held out by his impending marriage to Effie and the freedom embodied by the Sylphide, that inaccessible ideal who comes to him in his dreams. The work was a critical triumph from the outset, praised in particular by Théophile Gautier, who would later write the libretto for Giselle. This emblematic ballet was lost to the repertoire for over a century. It is now being presented at the Paris Opera in a faithful recreation by Pierre Lacotte, whose immense choreographic culture has enabled him to unravel and recast the spells of the grand French romantic style.
This is one of the many huge events coming to the Enzian this year. Stay tuned for more updates, and be sure to get social with us on Facebook, and follow along with us on Twitter @BehindThrills for the latest updates!
