ARTS NEWS FLASH - Vegas at the Metropolitan Opera?

Giuseppe Verdi
by Boldini 1886

Just when you thought Las Vegas' reach could go no further, the Metropolitan Opera gives Director Michael Mayer carte blanche, to take one of the greatest operas ever written and place it right smack in the middle of the Copa Room at the Sands! Talk about a way to bring opera to the pop-culture masses. By setting Rigoletto in 1960's Vegas instead of 16th century Lombardy I think many purists will be in for a bit of a shock. But for a person like me who cries like a bambino at the end of every opera I am so looking forward to this performance.

Can you really improve Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto? Apparently you can and Mr. Mayer is the one to do it. Just short of genius? maybe... But most definitely innovative and forward thinking to say the least. By the time the show opens in New York the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas will have been open almost a year and this show at The Met seems almost too perfect not to make it to the Green Felt Jungle. Hint hint...

So with all this said I know exactly where I will be in January 2013. Mr. Mayer on behalf of my native home, Las Vegas that is, BRAVO!!!

Please follow the link below for more details about the Metropolitan Opera's production of Rigoletto...

http://www.metopera-digital.org/metopera/season2012-13#pg15

Brian Paco Alvarez enculturating Las Vegas into the millennium...