Minnesota Opera music director Michael Christie will lead the world premiere performances of The Manchurian Candidate from March 7 to 15 in the Music Theatre at Ordway.
The new opera by Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell is based on the novel by Richard Condon. The Manchurian Candidate, a Minnesota Opera New Works Initiative Production, traces the suspenseful story of an American soldier decorated during the Korean War who is brainwashed into becoming an unwitting assassin in a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government.
The performances of The Manchurian Candidate are part of the Rock the Ordway series. These 22 days of opening nights will be marking the grand opening of the new, state-of-the-art concert hall at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Minnesota. The celebration kicks off Feb. 28 with a gala evening featuring The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra led by Christie in collaborative performances with the Minnesota Opera Chorus, pianist Jeremy Denk, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and more.
The Manchurian Candidate follows Kevin Puts’s Pulitzer Prize-winning first opera Silent Night, also led by Christie and with a libretto by Campbell, which Minnesota Opera premiered in 2011. Anthony Tommasini praised Christie’s “supple pacing and vitality” in The New York Times when he led the work in 2013 with Opera Company of Philadelphia.
A sneak peak of the show was recently release, with the Minnesota Post calling it “thrilling.”
The cast for the show include tenor Leonardo Capalbo as Capt. Ben Marco, baritone Matthew Worth as Sgt. Raymond Shaw, soprano Brenda Harris as Eleanor Iselin and bass Daniel Sumegi as Sen. Johnny Iselin.
Click here to purchase tickets for The Manchurian Candidate.
