Catch Domingo and more in Verdi’s ‘Luisa Miller’

Opera fans can get their regular fix on Saturday as the most recent Met Live performance, of Verdi’s “Luisa Miller,” will screen at two area Regal Cinemas theaters — at Northtown Mall 12 and at Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium 14 (with an encore showing on the following Wednesday).

Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo stars in what’s billed as a “heart-wrenching tragedy of fatherly love.” Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva sings the title role, while Polish tenor Piotr Beczala plays her erstwhile lover.

“Luisa Miller” (music by Giuseppe Verdi , libretto by Salvadore Cammarano) is based on the stage play “Kabale und Liebe” (“Intrigue and Love”) by the German playwright Friedrich von Schiller. It was first performed on Dec. 8, 1849, in Naples and has been revived numerous times since then.

In his review in the New York Times, opera critic Zachary Woolfe referred to the work as “the underrated ‘Luisa Miller,’ a relative rarity but passionate and full of arresting experiments in structure and sonority, a gateway to Verdi’s breakthrough works of the early 1850s (‘Rigoletto,’ ‘Il Trovatore,’ ‘Traviata’).”

As for this particular production, Woolfe wrote, “The Met hasn’t put on ‘Luisa’ in over a decade — and not this excitingly since well before that.”

And the singers? Domingo, Woolfe wrote, “His voice sounds healthy; he moves with fluency. If he’ll never be a true Verdi baritone, and always an aging tenor in baritone’s clothing, it is still a display not to be missed.” Yoncheva: “The clear, smoothly slicing quality of her soprano makes special impact in this opera.” And Beczala? “(I)n yet another role debut, (he) gave the rash Rodolfo his trademark poise and elegance.”

So there’s lots to enjoy, as always, in this four-hour extravaganza. And you can savor it in a local movie house. Imagine that.