Award-winning soprano featured in Verdi’s‘Ernani’ via Met: Live, which airs Saturday at Potsdam Roxy

POTSDAM — The Metropolitan Opera will bring its revival of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Ernani” to movie screens across the world, just days after its star received one of the most prestigious awards a young vocalist can be honored with.

Soprano Angela Meade takes center stage in the early Verdi opera in the next installment of the Met: Live in HD on Saturday. Meade was recently bestowed with the seventh annual Beverly Sills Artist Award.

The $50,000 award, the largest of its kind in the United States, is designated for extraordinarily gifted singers between the ages of 25 and 40 who have already appeared in featured solo roles at the Met. Meade made her Metropolitan debut in 2008 in the starring role in “Ernani,” which she will bring to international audiences in the live transmission.

“Her voice is plush and penetrating, though the power comes effortlessly from the body and richness of her sound. Her top notes soared over the orchestra. Yet just as impressive were her finespun pianissimo phrases,” Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times said of Meade’s work in the opera. “She can be a cautious singer, and she started tentatively here. But as the evening progressed, she gained confidence and conveyed the pathos, anguish and torment of a young woman being pulled apart by three controlling men, one of whom she adores.”

Verdi’s “Ernani” is set in 16th century Spain and is based on a play “Hernani” by Victor Hugo. In the title role, tenor Marcello Giordani plays Ernani, an outcast bandit who is really the disguised former Don Juan of Aragon, who lost his land and titles in a civil war. He is in love with Elvira, who is about to be forced to marry her uncle, Don Ruy Gómez de Silva, a part sung by bass Ferruccio Furlanetto. The third unexpected challenger for Elvira’s affections is Don Carlo, the king, played by baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

“Ernani” will screen live at 1 p.m. Saturday at Potsdam’s Roxy Theater. An encore transmission will be at 1 p.m. March 4.

The opera will be performed in Italian. The approximate running time is four hours, with intermission breaks.

In the north country, SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music and J.S. Cinemas sponsor the 2011-12 season of the Met: Live in HD, with staging live from the Metropolitan in New York City transmitted in high-definition and surround sound, with English subtitles.

Ticket prices for the series are the lowest in the nation: $18 for an adult, $15 for senior citizens, $12 for students and $9 for youth age 18 and under.

Tickets are available by calling the Community Performance Series Box Office at 267-2277, or by visiting the Roxy Theater or Northern Music & Video in downtown Potsdam or the CPS Box Office in the lobby of Sara M. Snell Music Theater. Tickets also can be reserved online by visiting www.cpspotsdam.org.

For more information on the 2011-12 the Met: Live in HD season, visit the Metropolitan Opera website at www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/liveinhd/LiveinHD.aspx.

To learn more about The Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, visit www.potsdam.edu/crane.