ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE - REVIEW OF OPERA ATELIER PRODUCTION

Mireille Lebel (Orpheus), Peggy Kriha Dye (Eurydice) and Meghan Lindsay (Amour). Photo by Bruce Zinger.

Reviewed James Karas

Opera Atelier delivers a largely successful and imaginative production of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice at the gorgeous Elgin Theatre. Director Marshall Pynkoski has produced the Hector Berlioz version of the opera having already staged the earlier two versions of the work.

Orpheus is considered the first “reform” opera. It was premiered in Vienna in 1762 and contains the first hit song in opera, “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice.”

Opera Atelier is in its element with this masterpiece and Pynkoski with Choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg and Set Designer Gerard Gauci deliver an opera and a ballet with some splendid sets.

Most of the singing of the opera falls on the vocal chords of Orpheus who has a tough job indeed. The role has been sung by voices from castrato to tenor but for this production Pynkoski has chosen mezzo-soprano Mireille Lebel. It is not an entirely happy choice. Lebel sings correctly and usually very prettily. But Orpheus goes through a gamut of emotions from deep grief at the death of his bride, to singing with such ravishing beauty that he convinces the Furies to let him go to the underworld, to elation and back to despair.

Lebel does not have a big voice and there were times when she came perilously close to not being heard. But the real issue is lack of coloration and emotional depth. We need to feel Orpheus’s anguish and elation. His appeal to the Furies must be like the Sirens’ song to Odysseus – unbearably alluring. Unfortunately Lebel’s emotional appeal on all those levels, though good, lacked the breadth that one hoped to find.

 Mireille Lebel (Orpheus) with Artists of Atelier Ballet. Photo by Bruce Zinger.

Soprano Peggy Kriha Dye sings an outstanding Eurydice. She has a full, lovely voice, expressive and impressive. When Orpheus and Eurydice sing together we hear the difference between the two singers quite dramatically.

Soprano Meghan Lindsay sings the relatively smaller role of Amour and she does a fine job.

Zingg does her usual best in providing ballet dancing throughout and an extended piece at the end. The opera can be static but Pynkoski and Zingg never allow it to become so.  Pynkoski adopts choreographic moves for the three characters and Zingg supplements those with the corps de ballet. The result is a colourful and splendidly paced production.

Gauci provides a colourful set with the scene in Hades being especially effective. Margaret Lamb’s costumes are colourful and delightful.

The Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra conducted by David Fallis do superior work.

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Orpheus and Eurydice by C. W. Gluck opened on April 9 and will run until April 18, 2015 at the Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario, M5B 1M4. www.operaatelier.com

LA DONNA DEL LAGO – REVIEW OF LIVE FROM THE MET PRODUCTION

John Osborn as Rodrigo, Joyce DiDonato as Elena, and Juan Diego Flórez as Giacomo V in Rossini's "La Donna del Lago."

Reviewed by James Karas

Rossini’s La Donna del Lago premiered in 1819. It was first produced at the Metropolitan Opera this year - a mere four years short of two centuries later.

There may be good reasons for giving the opera a wide berth but after the Met’s production the artistic reasons should be reduced even if the financial demands may discourage productions in the less well-heeled houses.

The Met production capitalizes on all the virtues of the opera – its outstanding music and superb solo and ensemble vocal pieces and minimizes the static nature of the opera which can make it appear like a set piece which can, in the long run, be deadly.

Let’s start with cast. The cast is as good as you can get. Joyce DiDonato delivers such vocal finesse, prowess and beauty that her interpretation of Elena becomes a defining performance. With her red hair she looks like a Scottish lass whose conflict between love and duty is preformed superbly.

Juan Diego Flores does not sing; he soars and his King James V is virile, romantic and sung to perfection. If Flores deserves to be called King of the High C’s, John Osborn as Rodrigo is right up there with him. Combined with a fine voice he has an expressive face and a nice tendency to raise his eyebrows when making a point.

La Donna is a ménage a quatre instead of the frequently met soprano being pursued by a tenor and a baritone and the latter going home empty handed if not dead. Here we have two tenors vying for the hand of Elena and the winner is a mezzo-soprano. The winner is Malcolm sung by mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona. She has a beautiful and expressive voice and she made a good Malcolm.

Rossini makes serious demands on the choruses and the Met has the wherewithal to fulfill the needs of the opera. The end of the first act requires three choruses and the scene is as thrilling and magisterial as you are likely to get in opera.

Splendid as the individual pieces can be La Donna can become static. Director Paul Curry has managed to reduce that danger dramatically. He makes the singers interact and no scene is permitted to linger with singers sitting on different parts of the stage as if their feet were nailed to the boards. He creates drama through interaction and brings the opera to life the way Rossini may or may not have imagined.

Michele Mariotti conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at a brisk pace without hurrying through the arias that require a slower pace.

The set by Kevin Knight gives the lie to the title. Elena may be called the lady of the lake but she is more the lady of the mountains. There is some indication of a body of water in the background but Gary Halverson, the director for the cinema, does not really want us to see it.

Knight’s design shows us barren mountains and there is no attempt to prettify them. If you don’t care about the title of the opera and Rossini’s directions, you will not mind. But Rossini had a specific vision of the set with a densely wooded mountains rising above a valley where there is a lake and a bridge. Elena is in a boat and she is watching the morning light and commiserating about her love. Forget the boat and the rest of Rossini’s ideas for the set and enjoy the production.

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La Donna del Lago by Gioachino Rossini was transmitted Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera in New York on March 14, 2015 at the Cineplex VIP Don Mills Shops at Don Mills, 12 Marie Labatte Road, Toronto Ontario M3C 0H9 and other theatres. Encores will be shown on May 9 and May 11, 2015 at select theatres.. For more information: www.cineplex.com/events

IOLANTA AND BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE – REVIEW OF LIVE FROM THE MET PRODUCTIONS

Piotr Beczala as Vaudémont and Anna Netrebko as the title character in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta. Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

Reviewed by James Karas

It is not easy finding a partner for Bluebeard. As a Duke he has been through four wives, at least, with unpleasant results for all. Poor man, finding a good wife is not easy. As an opera, it is just as difficult finding a suitable companion for Bluebeard’s Castle. The good ones are married or in a relationship and the rest are unsuitable for many reasons including the fact that they may suffer the same fate as the women who share his castle ever so briefly.

The Met has found the perfect match for both the Duke and the opera without even going to an internet dating site. The choice fell on Tchaikovsky’s never-before-seen-at-the-Met Iolanta. The 1892 one-acter has some lush music, a few good arias and many opportunities for colourful staging.

Director Mariusz Trelinlki and Set Designer Boris Kudlička give us a captivating production in modern dress that keeps the fairy tale elements of the opera.

The fairy tale is set in 15^th century southern France where we meet Iolanta (Anna Netrebko), a blind princess who is unaware of her sightlessness. She is betrothed to Robert (Alexey Markov) who is supposed to be a duke but in his bowtie, quilted jacket and skis, he looks very undukish. Robert and the knight Vaudémont (Piotr Beczala) lose their way in the forest and alight on Iolanta’s “cottage.” Robert does not know who she is (it was a childhood betrothal) and he is spoken to another in any event), Vaudémont falls in love with her and the rest is fairy tale opera.

The strength of this staging, aside from its production values, lies in the singing of Netrebko and Beczala. The soprano and the lyric tenor shine in their roles from blind princess groping around and wondering what she is missing, to the tenor falling in love with her to luscious music. There is a touching recognition scene where Iolanta realizes that she is blind thus opening the way for her to regain her sight.

Baritone Alexey Markov as Robert gives an expressive and impassioned aria in praise of Mathilde, his real love. Bass Ilya Bannik is a commanding King René, Iolanta’s father.

Iolanta lives in a cage, (well, she is a princess with servants so maybe it is a fancy cottage), in the forest which occupies a small part of the stage. Live I HD Director Gary Halvorson is content to focus on the cage and give us infrequent and unsatisfactory glimpses at what lies around it. There are some trees and the background may even change but don’t expect Halvorson to show it to you.

In spite of him, this is a very enjoyable production of this rarely produced opera.

Nadja Michael and Mikhail Petrenko - Photo Metropolitan Opera  

Béla Bartok’s Bluebeard in Trelinlki’s production opens at the edge of a dark and gloomy forest. A well-dressed man stands beside a mound of earth surrounding a hole, and a shovel. We see car lights and a beautiful blonde woman wearing a stunning gown approaches. She is Judith (Nadja Michael), the Duke’s new wife and a woman in love.

That is just the beginning of this brilliantly directed and designed production. The same team produced Iolanta with strikingly similar and successful points of similarity.

Bluebeard (Mikhail Petrenko) is handsome and almost business-like. He gives Judith the choice of leaving him but she insists that she will stay because she loves him. His singing is controlled, resonant and seething with evil. He is a total psychopath.

Nadja Michael has a deep almost sultry voice that gives a convincing portrayal of a strong woman with driving curiosity and inexplicable love. She is a marvelous Judith.

As with Iolanta, Bluebeard’s Castle has outstanding production values. Every door that the hapless Judith opens is a drama in itself. From the torture chamber to the armoury, to the garden and finally the room where the former wives are stored, we a see a brilliantly imagined castle.

The last scene of this production is the most dramatic. Bluebeard’s former wives come to life in an eerie and frightful fashion. They are the walking dead. We are back where we started by the shovel, the mound of earth and the hole. It is in fact a grave and this time there is a half-buried woman in it. It is Judith wearing the same gown that we saw at the beginning. Bluebeard gives her a passionate kiss and promises to love her forever.

When you get such outstanding singing, brilliant orchestral playing conducted by Valery Gergiev  combined with brilliant directing and design, you have opera at its best.

Let’s hope that Iolanta and Vaudémont get along just fine and she does not leave him for Duke Bluebeard.            

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Iolanta by Peter Tchaikovsky and Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartok were transmitted Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera on February 15, 2015 at the Cineplex VIP Don Mills Shops at Don Mills, 12 Marie Labatte Road, Toronto Ontario M3C 0H9 and other theatres. Encores will be shown on April 11 and 13, 2015. For more information: www.cineplex.com/events

DIE WALKÜRE – REVIEW OF COC PRODUCTION DIRECTED BY ATOM EGOYAN

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company production of Die Walküre, 2015. Photo: Michael Cooper

James Karas

Infidelity, incest, immorality, divine transgression and divine retribution, lust for flesh and power, and the bodies of a few heroes strewn around the stage is all in a day’s work for Wagner. Or 4 hours and 45 minutes, to be more precise, which is how long the current production of Die Walkűre by the Canadian Opera Company takes to give us all those events.

Atom Egoyan’s production has some brilliant touches and some takes that leave you scratching your head.

The set by Michael Levine consists of a mass of steel girders and lights at the top and on the sides of the stage that look like a scene under a bridge. A corner of a stucco building is visible at the back but I could not make out what it was supposed to represent. Is it Valhalla as viewed from under the bridge that was constructed for the gods to enter their grand abode in Das Rheingold? In any event, with some variations, the set serves for the whole opera from Hunding’s hut to the top of the rock where Wotan puts Brűnhilde to sleep and surrounds her by fire. The set is the head scratcher. Asie from that, Egoyan's production is simply superb.

American tenor Clifton Forbes sang the role of Siegmund even though he was indisposed. He struggled through the performance and deserves credit for that but further comment is uncalled for.

American soprano Christine Goerke has a big, clarion voice and sang a superb Brűnhilde. She dominated the scenes that she was in and was especially effective with the Valkyries. When Brűnhilde approaches Siegmund to inform him of Wotan’s decision that he must die, she raises a white sheet to her body and flames cover her torso. It is marvelous touch by Egoyan that foreshadows Brűnhilde’s fate. 

  

Clifton Forbis as Siegmund, Dimitry Ivashchenko as Hunding and Heidi Melton as Sieglinde. Photo: Michael Cooper

Danish baritone Johan Reuter did not make the ideal Wotan. His voice is marvelous in the lower register but it tended to show strain in the upper notes. Part of the problem is that his voice is simply not big enough to go over the orchestra when it is playing at full force. Wotan needs to have an over-powering voice befitting a god. Reuter did not manage those heights all the time.

Russian bass Dimitry Ivashchenko made a superb Hunding. He was vocally strong and resonant and physically threatening. He was well-matched with American soprano Heidi Melton as Sieglinde. She has a big, lovely voice and she showed fear, tenderness and courage as the wife of the boor Hunding and the loving sister/wife of Siegmund.

  

At the end of the opera, Wotan punishes Brűnhilde for her defiance of his orders to allow Hunding to kill Siegmund by placing her atop of a rock surrounded by flames. She will sleep there until a hero rescues her. Wotan’s Farwell to Brűnhilde is one of those great scenes in opera that one could wait not four but forty hours to see it. In this production there is no rock and Brűnhilde simply lies on the ground. But Wagner’s grand music played brilliantly by the COC Orchestra conducted by Johannes Debus provides a brilliant moment. As the scene winds up, the Valkyries descend of the stage carrying flaming torches. They surround Brűnhilde as if paying homage to the great Valkyrie and place the troches around her body. Brűnhilde is indeed protected from cowards until a great hero comes to rescue her.

See this exceptional production and wait until next year for the sequel.    

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Die Walküre by Richard Wagner opened on January 31 and will be performed a total of seven times until February 22, 2015 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel: 416-363-6671. www.coc.ca

LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN – REVIEW OF LIVE IN HD FROM MET PRODUCTION

Vittorio Grigolo in the title role and Christine Rice as Giuletta in Offenbach's "Les Contes d’Hoffmann."

Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

Reviewed by James Karas

Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, with its sprawling libretto, numerous characters, several settings and some complex psychological curves, is not an easy opera to produce successfully. Offenbach died during rehearsals of the first production and people have been tampering with the work ever since.

Bartlett Sher put his own imprimatur on the opera in his 2009 production for the Metropolitan Opera which has been remounted in New York and shown Live in HD around the world.

Sher gives us a dark, forbidding, almost macabre reading of the opera. Much of the time we see the faces of people dressed in back with white shirts on a dark background. I felt as if I were seeing ghosts. What the audience in Lincoln Centre saw may have been very different because the background set may have been more visible but it is impossible to say.

At the beginning of the performance we see the Muse dressed in a beautiful dress. Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsay makes a stunning Muse with her dramatic face and splendid voice. She soon puts on a black suit and becomes Hoffmann’s friend Nicklausse.  

The tortured and complex poet Hoffmann is played by tenor Vittorio Grigolo. Grigolo has youthful good looks that combine innocence and passion. Hoffmann is a man in pursuit of many things that are symbolized by love for a woman or several women. Hoffmann falls in love with the mechanical doll Olympia, the doomed singer Antonia who will drop dead if she sings and the courtesan Giulietta who does what courtesans do – dumps him for another man. Grigolo handles the role superbly both as an actor as the ever-searching and failing man and as a virtuoso singer who must display passion, lyricism and some sarcasm.    

Thomas Hampson as Dapertutto and Christine Rice as Giuletta in Offenbach's "Les Contes d’Hoffmann."

Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

Bass-baritone Thomas Hampson plays the four villains who haunt Hoffmann’s every affair until he (Hoffmann) destroys himself. Hampson has an imposing physique and an equally imposing and impressive voice. He gives the villains a haunting presence and us a superb performance.

The doll Olympia is sung and performed by Erin Morley. Morley has to adopt the awkward mechanical steps of a doll and sing; she derives full marks for evocative singing and acting.

Soprano Hibla Gerzmava sang the roles of Antonia and Stella, the latter being the woman he is in love with at the beginning of the opera and the one who leaves him dead drunk at the end. Gerzmava has a big and commanding voice and her portrayal of the two singers was convincing.

Christine Rice sang the beautiful but unfaithful Giulietta with beauty and fidelity.

Yves Abel conducted the Met Opera Orchestra.

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Les Contes d’Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach was shown Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera on January 31, 2015 at the Cineplex Odeon Eglinton Town Centre Cinema, 22 Lebovic Avenue, Toronto, Ontario and other theatres. Encores will be shown on March 28 and 30, 2015. For more information call (416)-752-4494 or visit www.cineplex.com/events.

DON GIOVANNI – REVIEW OF TCHERNIAKOV PRODUCTION BY COC

Scene from Canadian Opera Company production of Don Giovanni, 2015. Photo: Michael Cooper, Canadian Opera Company.

Reviewed by James Karas

***** (out of five)

Some bomb.

Many do it well.

A few do it terrifically.

A handful do such dazzling work that it amounts to creating a masterpieces from a masterpiece.

I speak of opera directors and especially of Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production of Don Giovanni for the Canadian Opera Company. All of us have preconceived notions of the legendary seducer including the way he is presented by Mozart. He is handsome, dashing, gallant, quick of mind and foot, amoral and fearless. A heroic figure if there ever was one.

Tcherniakov presents almost the opposite; almost a parody of the heroic figure. His Don Giovanni is an older man, who goes through the mechanics of seduction but is in fact a dried up drunkard to whom women are attracted but who has nothing to offer them.    

Tcherniakov sets the opera in the Commendatore’s paneled library and changes many of the relationships of the characters in order to justify their presence in that house. Donna Elvira becomes Donna Anna’s cousin and Don Giovanni’s wife. Zerlina is Donna Anna’s daughter from a previous marriage and Leporello is a relative of the Commendatore.

Every scene contains an unexpected and at times surreal interpretation of the opera. In the opening scene Don Giovanni is famously seducing, even raping the Commendatore’s daughter. Not so. Donna Anna is trying to seduce him and when her father shows up Don Giovanni simply pushes him away.

After Masetto gets a thrashing from Don Giovanni, Zerlina, ever the master manipulator, comforts him with the soothing aria “Vedrai, carino.” She is supposed to sing to Masetto, of course, and finish the aria by putting his hand on her heart. In this production, she takes Don Giovanni’s coat from Leporello and sings to it. The woman is in love irrationally and completely with Don Giovanni.    

In Act II Don Giovanni sings the gorgeous serenade “Deh! Vieni alla finestra,” with mandolin accompaniment, to Donna Elvira’s maid. In this production Don Giovani is drunk and alone as he sings and dances. He sings to no one and his movements suggest the Dance of Death.  It is one of many utterly surreal and captivating scenes in the production.   

Baritone Russell Braun has a pleasant if not big voice. It is well suited to the spent and dispirited Don Giovanni. He is a womanizer on automatic pilot, going through the motions but only a shadow of his former self. Braun’s voice contrasted with Kyle Ketelsen’s rich bass-baritone voice in the role of Leporello. Ketelsen gave us a Leporello with panache and devil-may-care attitude and some of the best singing of the evening.

Soprano Jane Archibald was a finely done Donna Anna, a sex starved woman who is trying to have sex with Don Giovanni and her hapless fiancé Don Ottavio. She sang better than she was able to exude the lusty sexuality of her character.

Don Ottavio is a wimp and is best if sung by a light tenor who is full of promises but is ineffectual. He has some beautiful arias. Unfortunately Michael Schade gave us an Ottavio who was more gruff than lyrical and his arias floated when they should have soared.

Jennifer Holloway as Donna Elvira displayed some vocal beauty and emotion but could not give us the anger that is inherent in a betrayed woman. She may still be in love with Don Giovanni who seduced her and abandoned her but her rendition of “Mi trade” (I was betrayed) needs some more punch.

Zerlina is not the sweet country girl but a smart teenager who becomes obsessed. With Don Giovanni and her ‘Batti, batti” and “Vedrai, carino” arias are given original and unexpected interpretations. Brava to Sasha Djihanian for superb work.

The Commendatore comes in for special treatment by Tcherniakov but bass Andrea Silvestrelli sings the last scene in a disappointing colorless monotone.  

Michael Hofstetter conducted the Canadian Opera Company Opera.

This is a co-production with Festival Aix-en-Provence and Teatro Real Madrid and Bolshoi Theatre Moscow. It was performed in Aix-en-Provence in the summer of 2010 and 2013. One measure of the quality of the production may be the fact that I saw both Aix productions and could not wait for it to arrive in Toronto.

Tcherniakov’s take on the opera does not seem to arouse excitement in everybody. The night I saw it Torontonians managed to mute their excitement and the standing ovation that the production deserves. It was perhaps just a display of Canadian reticence if the face of something extraordinary.

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Don Giovanni by W. A. Mozart opened on January 24 and will be performed a total of ten times until February 21, 2015 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel:  416-363-6671. www.coc.ca

THE MERRY WIDOW – REVIEW OF LIVE FROM THE MET PRODUCTION

Renée Fleming as Hanna, Kelli O'Hara as Valencienne, and Alek Shrader as Camille de Rosillon in                           

Lehár's  The Merry Widow. Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Reviewed by James Karas

The Metropolitan Opera has successfully married two very suitable candidates for nuptials: operetta and Broadway. The question is why did it take so long?

Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow almost defines the operetta genre and when done well it can provide a delightful night at the theatre. The Broadway musical is one of the largest components of the New York entertainment industry not to mention that it is a uniquely American contribution to culture. What it lacks in snob appeal it makes up for in energy, popularity and just plain fun. What operetta has in high cultural experience it often lacks in fun especially if done in a foreign language.

The Met has brought in Broadway Director and Choreographer Susan Stroman to create a Merry Widow that is full of energy, humour, high kicking dancing and a visual and aural pleasure.

The production is done in English avoiding the easiest way of killing this operetta which is to do it in German. The cast is uniformly superb with some excellent singers and dancers and just as importantly genuinely funny actors.

Soprano Renée Fleming has the role of Countess Hanna Glawari and surely she is everybody’s dream of a merry widow. Hanna is lively, beautiful and, thanks to her husband’s uncommon good sense in dying on their wedding night, loaded. Make that is in possession of twenty million whatevers, a sum sufficient to save the fatherland Pontevedria from bankruptcy. Fleming looks like a mature woman and that is a bonus on top of her silken voice.

With those looks and that bank account, Hanna has many suitors but the fatherland can only be saved if she married a Pontevedrian. That would be Count Danilo, an attaché at the Pontevedrian embassy in Paris, who prefers Chez Maxim’s to the office. Baritone Nathan Gunn is tall, dark and handsome, to coin a phrase, say, and with his powerful voice and swaggering manner fits the role. Gunn has made his reputation in the opera house but he is equally adept singing on Broadway, therefore, an ideal part for “this” match in every way.

Veteran baritone Thomas Allen is the foolish ambassador Baron Mirko Zeta. The vocal demands are not onerous and he gets the laughs as a gullible and cuckolded husband. His wife Valencienne is played by Broadway star Kelli O’Hara who is lively, funny and a delight to the ear and the eye.

Tenor Alek Shrader comes from the world of opera and he is handsome, sings well and looks like the perfect candidate for Hanna’s hand and fortune but as Camille de Rosillon he is unsuitable - he is French. Besides, the only reason he wants to marry Hanna is so he can have Valencienne i.e. make it respectable to be seen with another man’s wife.

Carson Elrod played the delightful nincompoop Njegus, an employee at the Pontevedria embassy, who always managed to put his foot in his mouth and produced laughter. 

Aside from the performers that I mentioned, the marriage of Broadway and operetta is effected by Stroman by giving the production a marvelous mixture of the two related forms. The outstanding Broadway dancers, the Met chorus, the humour, the energy and approachability of the operetta are all meticulously combined by Stroman to give us sheer entertainment. The Met Opera Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis added to the enjoyment.

The art-nouveau sets designed by Julian Crouch and the gorgeous costumes by William Ivey Long create an atmosphere of opulence, grace and beauty that exists only in our imagination and now on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

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The Merry Widow by Franz Lehar was transmitted Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera on January 17, 2015 at the Cineplex VIP Don Mills Shops at Don Mills, Toronto Ontario and other theatres. Encores will be shown on February 28 and March 2, 2015. For more information: www.cineplex.com/events