Editor’s Pick: The Maryland Lyric Opera’s “Don Carlo”
MDLO performs Verdi's masterpiece with full orchestra on Friday, May 13 and Sunday, May 15 at The Music Center at Strathmore.
Three months after pulling out all the stops for a triumphant pandemic return with Puccini’s epic last opera Turandot, the Maryland Lyric Opera concludes its season with Don Carlo, Verdi’s grand opera of forbidden passion and political intrigue.
Loosely based on the Spanish Inquisition, Don Carlo features some of Verdi’s most beautiful music, woven together with a story about love, family, and theological conflicts as immortalized in its “Grand Inquisitor” scene.
The regional company, created “for musicians, by musicians,” features the large MDLO Orchestra and Chorus, led by Music Director Louis Salemno, who has assembled a strong international cast, including several opera stars making their company debuts, including Arturo Chacón-Cruzas in the title role, Elaine Alvarez as Elisabetta, and Andrea Silvestrelli as King Filippo — as well as a contingent of rising stars returning to MDLO in supporting roles, including SeungHyeon Baek, Nayoung Ban, Adam Cioffari, Hunter Enoch, and José Sacin.
The cast also features Mark Delavan as Rodrigo, Catherine Martin as Princess Eboli, and Kenneth Kellogg as the Grand Inquisitor.
“My team has assembled one of the finest casts to grace an American stage this season, and I know our audience is excited to hear their collaboration with Louis Salemno, a conductor who knows this iconic score inside-out,” says MDLO Founder and Artistic Director Brad Clark. “After our grandly successful Turandot earlier this year, we look forward to returning once again to Strathmore, the most acoustically perfect venue in all of Maryland.
“It’s the best venue possible to show off our dedicated MDLO Orchestra and Chorus, as well as the new and enhanced visual effects that make our productions as dramatically engaging as they are sonically satisfying.”
Performed in Italian with projected English titles.
Friday, May 13, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 15, at 2 p.m. at The Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, Md.
Tickets are $40 to $150, or $10 for patrons with proper student ID.
Call 301-581-5100 or visit www.MDLO.org.
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