Stevenage cinema screens romantic operas

THE last in a series of live screenings will be show over the next two weekends.

The Met: Live in HD will end its 2012 season with two romantic opera favourites - Massenet’s comic epic Manon and Verdi’s classic La Traviata.

Both will be performed live and shown at Cineworld in Stevenage, kicking off with Manon on Saturday at 5pm.

Director Laurent Pelly’s production brings out the lavish and the romantic in the buoyant French score.

Set in a grandiose array of dusky pink costumes, it is the story of a young sister-to-be who elopes with a count while being escorted to her convent, leaving him shortly after to become the mistress of an older, richer man.

A week later doomed love affair La Traviata will be screened in an operatic production which promises a flood of colour and light to create a rousing cinematic vista.

The cinema in Stevenage Leisure Park is one of 80 venues across the country showing the screenings.