Met replaces live opera in parks with screenings

Met replaces live opera in parks with screenings

NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Opera is replacing its live summertime park productions with simpler recitals and a 10-day “festival” of outdoor HD screenings.

The six live recitals start July 13 in Central Park with baritone Paulo Szot joined by a soprano and tenor. Szot currently stars in the musical “South Pacific” at the Lincoln Center Theater.

Met productions that were originally telecast live in theaters worldwide will be shown free of charge in Lincoln Center Plaza starting Aug. 29.

The economic crisis has not spared the Met. In past summers, the company offered live performances that included a full orchestra, chorus and soloists — costing much more than screenings from the Met’s “Live in HD” productions.

Free canoe trips at Louisiana refuge

MANDEVILLE, La. — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is offering four free public canoe trips down Cane Bayou in Mandeville.

The tours showcase the natural and cultural history of Louisiana’s wetlands, and participants who don’t know how to canoe can learn. The trips are called “Rowing Through Time: People & Louisiana’s Wetlands.”

The trips are first-come, first-served, and people must register ahead of time.

Rangers will explain how people have interacted with and changed the land.

Each excursion will last two or three hours. All equipment and canoes are provided.

To register for a trip, call the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Education and Outreach Office at (866) 554-6319 or Park Ranger Jody DeMeyere at (985) 882-2024.

Empire salutes asparagus with annual festival

EMPIRE, Mich. — It’s not exactly a popular item among 8-year-olds, but in Empire, Mich., asparagus is so beloved that the town hosts an annual asparagus festival, this year May 15-16.

The locals dress up in asparagus costumes, hold a parade along their short three-block downtown, and host asparagus cook-offs featuring everything from soups and souffles to casseroles and crepes.

But the highlight of the Empire Asparagus Festival is the annual “Ode to Asparagus” poetry contest. If you prefer to eat asparagus rather than devise verbal tributes to it, there will be all sorts of things to sample, from asparagus pizza to asparagus beer.

Michigan is the nation’s third-largest producer of commercial asparagus, though Empire can only claim a tiny portion of that, with a 240-acre farm two miles from town. Empire is better known as an artsy summer resort and headquarters for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in the fruit-growing region around Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay.

For more information on the festival and other events in the area, visit www.VisitTraverseCity.com.

Associated Press