Hershey Felder Presents – Season 2 Holiday Pass – Dante in Florence and Mozart and Figaro in Vienna

A special discount on the first 2 shows of the season!

Dante in Florence
The heroine of Dante’s The Divine Comedy is Beatrice whom he met but only twice in Florence, once when he was nine, and again when he was eighteen. But Dante was so smitten with Beatrice that she remained his ideal love for the rest of his life.

Our story begins in the little church that still stands in Florence where they first met more than 700 years ago. Known as the “Chiesa Di Dante,” it is where Beatrice is said to be buried. Next to Beatrice’s tomb is a basket, where for hundreds of years notes of hope, dreams, heartbreak, and love have been left by visitors with open hearts asking for Beatrice’s blessing. One of those notes, is a mysterious old musical manuscript, and it is there that our adventure begins.

Airing: Sunday, November 28, 2021

Mozart and Figaro in Vienna

The world first heard and saw The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna in 1786. The opera considered by many the first and perhaps only perfect opera borne of a staggering collaboration between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte – a Jew, a Priest and a Brothel owner all rolled into one. Da Ponte had been banished from Venice due to his low-rent behavior, and he ended up in Vienna, where he was introduced to Mozart by Mozart’s landlord, a mutual acquaintance of both. Finding each other full of jokes and high jinks, with Mozart at the helm, the two of them decide to take a banned play by the French writer Beaumarchais and turn it into the greatest and most beloved opera ever composed.

Airing: Sunday January 9, 2022