The Hours With Kelli O’Hara Streams Free Now Through PBS

The Hours With Kelli O’Hara Streams Free Now Through PBS
Mar 17, 2023

Season 17 of "Great Performances at The Met" will open tonight with a special presentation of The Hours, a new opera from Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Kevin Puts starring Tony Award-winner Kelli O'Hara and Tony nominee Renée Fleming. Christine Baranski hosts the broadcast.

Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and the popular Oscar-winning 2002 film starring Meryl Streep, the new opera follows three women from different eras who each battle with their own demons and roles in society.

Kelli O’Hara, known for her musical theater work such as the recent The King and I (now available to stream), plays Laura Brown, who reads Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" in the 1950s. O'Hara also appeared in South Pacific, The Light in the Piazza, and Jekyll and Hyde on Broadway (streaming free as well).

 


 

Phelim McDermott directed this compelling drama, with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct Puts’s poignant and powerful score. 

The libretto by Greg Pierce follows three women: Virginia Woolf in 1929, in the process of writing Mrs. Dalloway, Laura Brown in 1949, who is reading it, and Clarissa Vaughan at the end of the 20th century, who is practically living it. 

The opera, which was broadcast to cinemas live in December of last year, will begin streaming today - Friday, March 17 at 9 PM ET and will be available through the PBS Great Performances online platform. The stream will be available starting at 9 PM ET and will be available for at least 30 days in the US and Canada.

 


 

The cast includes Kathleen Kim, Sylvia D'Eramo, Denyce Graves, John Holiday, William Burden, Sean Panikkar, Kyle Ketelsen, and Brandon Cedel. The Hours has direction by Phelim McDermott, with scenic and costume design by Tom Pye, lighting design by Bruno Poet, projection design by Finn Ross, and choreography by Annie-B Parson.

The opera premiered at New York's Metropolitan Opera in November 2022. The PBS Met season will also include the live captures of last season's La Traviata, Fedora with Sonya Yoncheva, Medea starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Lohengrin led by Piotr Beczała, Michael Volle as Falstaff, Der Rosenkavalier starring Lise Davidsen, Don Giovanni with Tony winner Ivo van Hove, Champion with Camille A. Brown, and a new staging of Die Zauberflöte.