MIDDLEBURY — After wowing audiences with his astounding production of “Lulu” in 2015, South African artist William Kentridge now focuses his extraordinary visual imagination on on Australian composer Alban Berg’s other operatic masterpiece, which comes to cinemas for the first time on Jan. 11. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is on the podium for this important event, with baritone Peter Mattei as the disturbed title character. Soprano Elza van den Heever is Wozzeck’s unfaithful mate, alongside a commanding cast that also includes tenor Christopher Ventris, bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, and tenor Gerhard Siegel.
The performance of “Wozzeck” on Saturday, Jan. 11, will be transmitted live to more than 2,200 movie theaters in more than 70 countries as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, including the Town Hall Theater in Middlebury. The transmission will be hosted by bass-baritone Eric Owens, who stars as Porgy in the Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess” later this season.
Scott Morrison will give a pre-show talk in the Byers Studio downstairs at 12:15 p.m. with refreshments sponsored by the Opera Company of Middlebury, and the broadcast begins at 1 p.m. Tickets are $24/$10 students and may be purchased at townhalltheater.org, by calling (802) 382-9222, at the THT box office Monday-Saturday 12-5 p.m., or at the door an hour before show time.