Renée Fleming, Kelli O'Hara, and Joyce DiDonato to Headline The Hours Opera
(© David Gordon)
Renée Fleming, Kelli O'Hara, and Joyce DiDonato will headline a new opera based on Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours and the film of the same title, the New York Times reports.
According to the publication, the opera was composed by Kevin Puts and will have its Metropolitan Opera debut in the fall of 2022. Fleming will take on the role of Clarissa Vaughan, played on screen by Meryl Streep, with O'Hara as Laura Brown (originated by Julianne Moore) and DiDonato as Virginia Woolf (for which Nicole Kidman won an Oscar). No other information was provided.
The Hours follows three women of different generations whose lives are connected by Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway. In 2001, Clarissa is throwing an award party for her friend Richard, a poet dying of AIDS; in the 1950s, Laura is an unhappy housewife with a young son; and in the 1920s, Virginia Woolf herself is struggling to write her novel while dealing with depression. The novel won a Pulitzer Prize, with the film earning nine Oscar nominations.
