BY KAREN BOSSICK

Giacomo Puccini’s bittersweet love story “La Rondine” will hit the big screen on Saturday, April 20, at The Magic Lantern Cinemas in Ketchum.

Sun Valley Opera and Broadway will present the Metropolitan Opera’s live simulcast of the opera, whose title “The Swallow” references a fortune teller’s admonition that the lead character is like a swallow that longs for true love and to migrate towards the sun. The performance, which includes behind the scenes interviews, starts at 10:55 a.m. Saturday, April 20. Tickets are available at the door, cash only.

Soprano Angel Blue will star as the French courtesan Magda opposite tenor Jonathan Tetelman. He will portray Ruggero, an idealistic young man who offers her an alternative to her life of excess. Soprano Emily Pogorelc and tenor Bekhzod Davronov will portray Magda’s maid Lisette and the poet Prunier, who likes to expound on love.

Speranza Scappucci will conduct the music for Nicolas Joel’s glittering 1920s staging, which transports audiences from the heart of Parisian nightlife to a dreamy vision of the French Riviera.

The opera was slated to premiere in Vienna but was moved in Monte Carlo because of World War I. In it Puccini made use of such modern dance rhythms as the tango.