Central City Opera's 88th Annual Summer Festival Features RIGOLETTO, CAROUSEL And DIDO AND AENEAS

Central City Opera's 2020 Summer Festival opens with a bang on July 4 with Rodgers & Hammerstein's beloved musical Carousel, followed by Verdi's thriller, Rigoletto, and Purcell's bewitching, hour-long opera Dido and Aeneas.

The four-week celebration of storytelling and powerful voices in the historic mountain mining town features electrifyingly close encounters with classical music's biggest talent, the Central City Opera Orchestra and rising stars from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program.

"Our 2020 Festival is all about the themes of hope, fate and passion," said Pelham "Pat" Pearce, Central City Opera's General/Artistic Director. "Our opera house immerses audiences so close to the action that they can't escape the emotional rollercoaster ride with our world-class performers."

"One of America's finest theatrical achievements," Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel follows the ups, downs, round and rounds of life and love. Muddling through small town expectations, meager means and conflicting dreams, Julie, Billy and their daughter Louise learn "You'll Never Walk Alone." Prolific director Ken Cazan will bring the monumental musical to life on the intimate Central City Opera stage, with Matthew Worth (Billy Bigelow) and Anna Christy (Julie Jordan) portraying the principal characters with crowd-pleasing gusto.

Opera reaches a new elevation with Central City's 2020 rendition of Rigoletto, a topsy turvy suspense, teeming with twists of plot and twists of fate. A devilish Duke and his tortured court jester, Rigoletto, clash over the jester's beautiful daughter in this standard of the Italian opera repertoire. Rigoletto pits humor against heartbreak in in a joke gone too far, set to some of the best-known music in all of opera. Director Jose Maria Condemi will push dramatic limits, harnessing the mystery of thehistoric Opera House dramatically, and Aleksey Bogdanov (Rigoletto), Zach Borichevsky (Duke) and Kathryn Lewek (Gilda) are ready to captivate audiences from curtain to close.

Sprung from epic poetry and myth, Dido and Aeneas is an opulent tale of power and passion between two formidable rulers and the Sorceress who toys with their fates. This gem of the early music canon will be performed in an intimate, nontraditional venue, featuring singers from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program, which sees graduates off into international performance careers and critical acclaim.

Summer in Central City brings talented performers who travel the U.S. and internationally, performing at top-tier venues, such as The Metropolitan Company, Santa Fe Opera, the Salzburg Festival and many more. Don't miss this chance to witness timeless tales in a historic opera house.

New subscriptions are available on December 9, 2019, and single tickets go on sale March 20, 2020. Visit www.centralcityopera.org or call 303-292-6700 to learn more.

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