Candles light themselves. Human arms creep from the walls. A beastly figure roams grand, shadowed halls.\u00a0At the Ridglea Theater on Nov. 21\u201322, Fort Worth Opera invites audiences into a world where fairy tales take on a strange, hypnotic life of their own.\u00a0Philip Glass\u2019s\u00a0\u201cLa Belle et la B\u00eate\u201d\u00a0(Beauty and the Beast) transforms Jean Cocteau\u2019s 1946 cinematic classic into a live, mesmerizing fusion of opera, concert, and film \u2014 and thanks to a new Pay What You Can program, anyone can step inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last Glass work we performed was\u00a0\u2018Hydrogen Jukebox\u2019\u00a0in 2011, and\u00a0\u2018La Belle et la B\u00eate\u2019\u00a0pushes that spirit even further,\u201d said Angela Turner Wilson, the company\u2019s General & Artistic Director. \u201cWe\u2019restepping away from the traditional proscenium arch and into something completely different: a fusion of voice, music, and film.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0opera,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0cinema,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0romantic,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0funky,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0unique \u2014 and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0wonderful. And now, thanks to the Claytor Family Charitable Foundation, anyone can experience it for the price of an ordinary movie ticket.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Glass\u2019s 1994 reinterpretation of Cocteau\u2019s black-and-white classic turns every line of dialogue into sung text, creating a \u201creverse lip-sync\u201d between on-screen characters and live singers. At the Ridglea, singers from Fort Worth Opera join an 18-piece orchestra from the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, performing in front of the big screen as Cocteau\u2019s images flicker across it. Synthesizers shimmer,\u00a0winds\u00a0pulse, and the chamber orchestra brings a tactile, human energy to the otherworldly visuals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Soprano V\u00e9ronique\u00a0Filloux\u00a0makes her company debut as Belle, her coloratura described as \u201cdazzling\u201d by critics, while bass-baritone Andr\u00e9 Courville embodies La B\u00eate \/ Le Prince, praised for a \u201csplendid, lush\u201d voice. Supporting them are David Grogan as Belle\u2019s father and the company\u2019s Hattie Mae Lesley Resident Artists,\u00a0showcasing\u00a0rising talent in featured roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLa Belle et la B\u00eate\u201d\u00a0runs\u00a090 minutes\u00a0without intermission, in French with English subtitles. Pay What You Can tickets are limited to 100 per performance and can be reserved online or through the Fort Worth Opera Box Office. Regular-price\u00a0tickets and\u00a0season\u00a0packages are available at\u00a0fwopera.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis one is for lovers of classic film, opera, and Philip Glass,\u201d Turner Wilson adds. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0a perfect date night, a great girls\u2019 night, and \u2014 thanks to the generosity of the Claytor Family Charitable Foundation \u2014 a wonderful introduction to opera for families with kids who grew up loving the Disney version and are now ready for something a little more sophisticated. And\u00a0here\u2019s\u00a0a huge spoiler: it has\u00a0a happy ending!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Candles light themselves. Human arms creep from the walls. A beastly figure roams grand, shadowed halls.\u00a0At the Ridglea…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":362770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,2677,12043,2879,1020,7371,98095,7372,9730,11878,975,18278,18281,102003,19624,5921,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-362769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-artists","10":"tag-arts-and-culture","11":"tag-events","12":"tag-film","13":"tag-fort-worth","14":"tag-fort-worth-opera","15":"tag-fortworth","16":"tag-fwtx-staff","17":"tag-live-music","18":"tag-music","19":"tag-opera","20":"tag-performance","21":"tag-ridglea-theater","22":"tag-signing","23":"tag-style","24":"tag-texas","25":"tag-top-story","26":"tag-tx","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-united-states-of-america","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115509890018951172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}