FREDONIA — In a year full of celebrations commemorating the 400-year anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the 1891 Fredonia Opera House will present two live via satellite productions from the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.

The second of the two productions is The Merchant of Venice, which will be presented Saturday, Nov. 5, at 1 p.m.

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most poetically dazzling and morally ambivalent plays. In some of its most highly charged scenes, the bard dramatizes the competing claims of tolerance and intolerance, religious law and civil society, justice and mercy; while in the character of Shylock, he created one of the most memorable outsiders in all theatre. In the play, Portia, a wealthy heiress of Belmont, is forced to set her suitors upon a challenge.  The winner receives her hand in marriage; the losers lose her hand … and much more.  In Venice, the epicenter of consumption, speculation and debt, Bassanio borrows money from his friend Antonio to finance his attempt.  Antonio, in turn, takes out a loan from the moneylender Shylock. The loan will be repaid when Antonio’s ships return to the city.  But if the ships fail to return, and the money cannot be repaid, Antonio will give to Shylock a pound of his own flesh.  When they do fail to return … Shylock will have his “bond.”

Jonathan Pryce, double Olivier and Tony Award winner, plays Shylock in his first appearance at Shakespeare’s Globe. An internationally acclaimed stage and screen actor, he most recently appeared as Cardinal Wolsey in the television adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. His extensive theatre work includes Comedians in London and on Broadway for which he won a Tony Award, Hamlet in London, for which he received an Olivier Award, and Miss Saigon, in which he starred on both sides of the Atlantic winning further Olivier and Tony Awards.  He also won the Cannes Film Festival and Evening Standard Awards for Best Actor for his performance in the film Carrington.

Tickets to The Merchant of Venice are $15 ($10 for students) and may be purchased in person at the Opera House Box Office or by phone at 679-1891 from 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. They also may be purchased online at www.fredopera.org.