BY KAREN BOSSICK
The enthralling story of an opera diva searching for her lost lover, a butterfly hunter who has disappeared into the jungle, will be the subject of Met Opera’s Live Simulcast Opera on Saturday.
Daniel Catan’s “Florencia en el Amazonas” will be screened at 10:55 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, at the Magic Lantern Cinemas in Ketchum. The production is being championed locally by the newly renamed Sun Valley Opera and Broadway.
The opera depicts the psychological journey of passengers traveling down the Amazon River aboard the steamship El Dorado.
Ailyn Perez stars as Florencia Grimaldi, the opera star who returns to her native South America. Yannick Nezet-Seguin is on the podium. The production by Mary Zimmerman was inspired by the magical realism of Colombian novelist and short story writer and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century in Latin America.
The characters are inspired by Garcia Marquez, and the libretto was provided by Marcela Fuentes-Berain, a student of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
It was the first Spanish-language opera commissioned by major U.S. opera houses—in this case, Seattle Opera, Los Angeles Opera and Houston Grand Opera.
The Magic Lantern takes cash only.