New York, NY (September 12, 2007)—For three decades, the Metropolitan Opera has given public television audiences a front-row seat to a dazzling array of great opera performances. Now, in honor of the Met’s 30th anniversary on PBS, Thirteen/WNET New York’s Great Performances at the Met series presents Great Moments at the Met: Viewer’s Choice, a showcase of fans’ favorite televised Met moments, chosen through online voting. Met General Manager Peter Gelb encourages fans to cast their votes: “We thought it would be fun for opera lovers to have their say.” Opera diva Renée Fleming will host an exciting line-up of some of the most unforgettable scenes from the past 30 years of broadcasts on this special countdown show, which airs this December on PBS.
Voting for Great Moments at the Met: Viewer’s Choice begins September 17, 2007, online at the Great Performances website (www.pbs.org/gperf), where a selection of excerpts from Met telecasts spanning three decades will be available for screening. Viewers are invited to cast their votes for their top-ten favorites (one time only) and will be able to rank their choices from 1 to 10. Voting ends October 12, 2007.
Viewers will be able to choose from a wide range of stunning performances, beginning with the very first Live from the Met telecast of La Bohème in 1977, starring the young Luciano Pavarotti. Other highlights include such incomparable performances as Plácido Domingo in Verdi’s Otello, Leontyne Price in her farewell performance of Aida, Joan Sutherland as the tragic heroine of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and Birgit Nilsson in Strauss’ Elektra.
In addition, audiences will be able to vote for highlights from last season’s Great Performances at the Met – Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, with the riveting pairing of Renée Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky; Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, featuring the vocal fireworks of Juan Diego Flórez and Joyce di Donato; and Bellini’s I Puritani, led by the stunning Anna Netrebko – fresh from the inaugural season of the Met’s groundbreaking and highly successful Live in High Definition series.
Great Performances at the Met begins its second season in spring 2008 with Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel with Alice Coote and Christine Schäfer, followed by Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with Netrebko and Rolando Villazón; Verdi’s Macbeth with Lado Ataneli, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine; Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, starring Karita Mattila and also conducted by Maestro Levine; Britten’s Peter Grimes with Anthony Dean Griffey; Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, starring Deborah Voigt and Ben Heppner, conducted by Levine; Puccini’s La Bohéme with Angela Gheorghiu and Ramón Vargas; and Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, with Flórez and Natalie Dessay.
For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are supervising producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are producers. David Horn is series producer for Great Performances; Bill O’Donnell is director of program development.
About the Met
Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Met has launched a series of bold initiatives designed to broaden its audience and revitalize the company’s repertory. The Met has made a commitment to presenting modern masterpieces alongside the classic repertory, with highly theatrical productions featuring the greatest opera stars in the world. Seven new productions will debut at the Met in 2007-08, the most new productions the Met has presented in one season in 40 years.
Building on its 76-year-old international radio broadcast history, the Met now uses advanced media distribution platforms and state-of-the-art technology to reach millions of opera fans around the world. “Metropolitan Opera: Live in High Definition,” the company’s series of live performance transmissions, shown in high definition (HD) in movie theaters around the world, will expand from six to eight opera transmissions in 2007-08, beginning with Roméo et Juliette on December 15. Global distribution of the series is estimated to triple in 2007-08, reaching 1 million audience members in over 700 participating venues worldwide. These performances will subsequently air on PBS, and a selection of these HD performances will be available on DVD through a partnership with EMI Classics beginning in 2008. Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Channel 85) is a subscription-based audio service broadcasting both live and rare historical performances. The Met also presents free live audio streaming of performances on its website with support from RealNetworks®.
The Met supports several new audience development initiatives, including Open Houses, the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met for contemporary art, reduced ticket prices, including an immensely popular new rush ticket program, and an annual Holiday Series for families. For more information, please visit: www.metopera.org.
About Thirteen/WNET
Thirteen/WNET New York is one of the key program providers for public television, bringing such acclaimed series as GREAT PERFORMANCES, Nature, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Wide Angle, Secrets of the Dead, NOW With David Brancaccio, and Cyberchase – as well as the work of Bill Moyers – to audiences nationwide. As the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro area, Thirteen reaches millions of viewers each week, airing the best of American public television along with its own local productions such as The Ethnic Heritage Specials, The Thirteen Walking Tours, New York Voices, and Reel New York. Thirteen extends the impact of its television productions through educational and community outreach projects – including the Celebration of Teaching and Learning – as well as Web sites and other digital media platforms. More information can be found at: www.thirteen.org.