New York, NY (November 16, 2007)—On December 8, 2007, the Metropolitan Opera Radio Saturday Matinee Broadcasts kicks off its 77th season of world-class opera heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network with the network premiere of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, starring opera luminaries Susan Graham as Iphigénie and Plácido Domingo as Oreste. The new production, conducted by Louis Langrée and directed by Stephen Wadsworth, will be broadcast live at 1:30 p.m. EST. The longest-running classical music series in American broadcast history, with Margaret Juntwait in her fourth season as host, brings the greatest singers, conductors and artists in the world to millions of radio listeners throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
The 22-week broadcast season—20 live matinee performances, including six new productions—runs through May 3, 2008. In addition to Iphigénie en Tauride, the Met will broadcast the network premiere of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, a new production conducted by Dante Anzolini and starring Richard Croft as Mahatma Gandhi. Other new productions this broadcast season include Lucia di Lammermoor, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and starring Natalie Dessay and Giuseppe Filianoti; Macbeth, conducted by Maestro Levine and starring Lado Ataneli and Maria Guleghina; Peter Grimes, conducted by Donald Runnicles and starring Anthony Dean Griffey and Patricia Racette; and La Fille du Régiment, conducted by Marco Armiliato and starring Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez. A new English-language production of Hansel and Gretel, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, will be part of the Met’s annual holiday presentation, with Christine Schäfer and Alice Coote singing the title roles.
To honor two great opera luminaries lost this year, the Met will present two archival broadcasts: Rossini’s L'Assedio di Corinto (The Siege of Corinth, 1975), starring the late Beverly Sills, and Puccini’s La Bohème (1977), featuring the late Luciano Pavarotti performing with Renata Scotto, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine.
The Met will continue to connect with its long-standing audience and new listeners by providing thoughtful intermission features and interviews that capture the excitement of live opera. Margaret Juntwait is joined in the broadcast booth by performer, director and writer Ira Siff as guest commentator. The Backstage Pass and beloved Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Quiz return this season as part of the Met Broadcast intermission features, and the new Met Memories, a showcase of legendary artists, debuts this season. Met artists, singers, directors, and designers will visit the broadcast booth to discuss their current productions with the company.
Heard in more than 40 countries around the world, the Met broadcasts are sponsored by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®, with generous long-term support from The Annenberg Foundation and the Vincent A. Stabile Endowment Fund for Broadcast Media. The Metropolitan Opera is also grateful for the contributions to the broadcasts from listeners worldwide through the “Support the Met Broadcasts Campaign.”
Two Network Premieres
Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, which returns to the Met for the first time since 1917, opens the 2007-08 broadcast season on December 8 with a new production conducted by Maestro Langrée and directed by Stephen Wadsworth. Graham and Domingo are joined in the cast by Paul Groves as Pylade and William Shimell as Thoas. Iphigénie en Tauride is a co-production with Seattle Opera, and opened there with a different cast in October 2007. The Seattle Times praised Wadsworth as “a master at extracting meaningful drama out of every scene.” Seattle Weekly described the new staging as, “a near-perfectly balanced combination of music, spectacle, and movement.”
Praised by The Times of London as a “masterwork of theatrical intensity” the Met’s new co-production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha has its broadcast premiere on April 19, 2008, after opening at English National Opera last season. Based on Mohandas K. Gandhi’s formative years in South Africa and called “an astonishingly beautiful work” by the The Guardian, Satyagraha is conducted by Maestro Anzolini and directed by Phelim McDermott and associate director and designer Julian Crouch (artistic directors of London’s Improbable theater company) and stars tenor Richard Croft as Gandhi, soprano Rachelle Durkin as Miss Schlesen, baritone Earle Patriarco as Mr. Kallenbach, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Parsi Rustomji.
New Productions
Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine, will be broadcast on March 8, 2008. Directed by Mary Zimmerman, the new production stars Natalie Dessay in the title role, Giuseppe Filianoti as Edgardo, Mariusz Kwiecien as Enrico, and John Relyea as Raimondo. The Met’s acclaimed Lucia was the centerpiece of its citywide celebration of the new season, which included a live telecast in Times Square and at Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza. The New York Times described Ms. Dessay’s performance as “glorious…her sound shimmers throughout the Met’s auditorium.”
A new production of Verdi’s Macbeth will be broadcast on January 12, 2008, with Maestro Levine leading the performance. Adrian Noble directs the production with a cast that includes Lado Ataneli and Maria Guleghina as Lady Macbeth, Roberto Aronica as Macduff, and John Relyea as Banquo. The New York Times praises the Met’s new Macbeth as a “grimly effective, intriguingly playful production” and Ms. Gulgehina’s performance as “chillingly powerful.”
Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes will be broadcast on March 15, 2008, in a new production conducted by Donald Runnicles and directed by John Doyle. Anthony Dean Griffey sings the title role, with Patricia Racette as Ellen Orford and Anthony Michaels-Moore as Balstrode.
Donizetti’s comic opera La Fille du Régiment returns to the Met broadcasts on April 26, 2008 in a new production conducted by Marco Armiliato and directed by Laurent Pelly. What The Times of London called “a very yummy operatic cake” when it premiered there last season, the Met’s co-production with the Royal Opera and Vienna State Opera stars Natalie Dessay as Marie, Juan Diego Flórez as Tonio, Felicity Palmer as the Marquise of Berkenfeld, and Alessandro Corbelli as Sulpice. Tony Award-winner Zoe Caldwell makes her Met debut in the speaking role of the Duchess of Krakenthorp.
Special Holiday Presentation
The Met continues its new tradition of presenting family-friendly works during the holiday season with a new, English-language production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, conducted by Maestro Jurowski and directed by Richard Jones. The opera will be broadcast on December 29, with Christine Schäfer singing the role of Gretel, Alice Coote as Hansel, Philip Langridge as the Witch, and Rosalind Plowright and Alan Held as Gertrude and Peter.
Season Highlights
The Met Broadcast season features an exceptional roster of talented artists. International stars Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna sing the title roles in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette on December 15, 2007 in a performance that, in addition to being broadcast over the Toll Brothers Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network, will launch the new season of “Metropolitan Opera: Live in High Definition,” worldwide movie theater transmissions. Of their performance together in Roméo et Juliette at the Met this fall, The New York Times simply stated, “You are not going to hear much better singing than this today.”
World-renowned soprano Renée Fleming sings Desdemona, one of her best-known roles, in Verdi’s Otello on March 1, 2008. Johan Botha makes his Met role debut in the title role. Semyon Bychkov conducts.
Angela Gheorghiu and Ramón Vargas star in Franco Zeffirelli’s iconic production of Puccini’s La Bohème, conducted by Nicola Luisotti on Saturday, April 5, which will also be shown as part of the Met’s “Live in High Definition” series.
James Levine conducts Ben Heppner and Deborah Voigt in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which returns to the Met Broadcasts on March 22, 2008. Levine also leads the February 16, 2008 broadcast performance of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, starring the captivating Karita Mattila in the title role and celebrated Italian tenor Marcello Giordani as des Grieux.
Principal Guest Conductor Valery Gergiev conducts a pair of Prokofiev masterpieces, each of which return to the Met Broadcasts for the first time in several years: War and Peace on December 22, 2007, and The Gambler on April 12, 2008.
After a 45-year absence, Maestro Lorin Maazel returns to the Met to conduct Wagner’s Die Walküre on February 2, 2007. He leads a cast that includes Lisa Gasteen as Brünnhilde, Deborah Voigt as Sieglinde, Michelle DeYoung as Fricka, Clifton Forbis as Siegmund, James Morris as Wotan, and Mikhail Petrenko as Hunding.
Archival Broadcasts
On January 19, 2008, the Met will air a historic performance of Puccini’s La Bohème, starring the late Luciano Pavarotti with the legendary Renata Scotto conducted by Maestro Levine, which originally was broadcast on March 19, 1977.
In a tribute to the late Beverly Sills, the Met will air her April 19, 1975 performance as Pamira in Rossini’s The Siege of Corinth on February 9, 2008. Sills, who had made her company debut less than two weeks prior to this performance, sings opposite Justino Díaz as Maometto and Shirley Verrett as Neocle in a performance led by Maestro Thomas Schippers. The Met will feature archived interviews with Sills, who was a frequent guest on the broadcasts, including one from 1975 and one taped a few months prior to her death.
About the Host and Commentator
Margaret Juntwait joined the Met as host of the Saturday afternoon Radio Broadcasts in 2004, only the third regular announcer in the Met’s broadcast history. In 2006, she also became the announcer for programming on Metropolitan Opera on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, which launched on September 25 with the opening performance of the season. Prior to her work with the Met, she was a classical music radio host with WNYC Radio. She has also hosted numerous radio documentaries and museum tours. She is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music with a degree in voice.
Commentator Ira Siff is heard alongside host Margaret Juntwait for the Saturday broadcast season. A critic for Opera News magazine, Siff is also an accomplished director, having staged opera productions with numerous companies including Sarasota Opera, New Jersey State Opera, Utah Symphony and Opera, and Carnegie Hall, among others. In 2007, he directed a fully-stage production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte for the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows and Orchestra, conducted by James Levine. He is founder of La Gran Scena Opera Company, the performance troupe whose falsetto male singers have spoofed opera with great affection for over two decades.
The Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts
For more than seven decades, the Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts have brought opera into millions of homes and enriched the lives of many, playing a vital and unparalleled role in the development and appreciation of opera in this country. The broadcasts debuted on December 25, 1931, with Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.
Since 1940, the broadcasts have been heard in Canada, and in 1990 they expanded to include regular transmission to Europe. Today worldwide coverage has grown to include not only more than 30 European countries, but also South America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and China. Through these international broadcasts, the Metropolitan Opera serves as a cultural ambassador to the world.
The Metropolitan Opera continues its “Support the Met Broadcasts Campaign,” a major international fundraising effort launched in March 2004 to secure the broadcasts’ long-term future. The goal is to create a sustainable Broadcast Fund with donations of all sizes from individual listeners as well as corporations and foundations who value this unique programming. Contributions may be made by phone at 1-800-METOPERA, through the internet at www.metopera.org., or by mail at “Support the Met Broadcasts Campaign,” Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, New York, NY 10023.
Listeners can visit www.operainfo.org for a wealth of information about the Met broadcasts. The site is rich with synopses and casting information, as well as background information about operas, performers, and conductors. Resources also include curriculum materials for teachers. For details about all Met performances this season, as well as ticket information, visit the Met’s website at www.metopera.org.
In North America the 2007-08 season of broadcasts will be distributed in digital stereo via satellite over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network. This independent network is made up of more than 300 domestic commercial and public radio stations, as well as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s English and French networks. In Europe, the broadcast distribution is coordinated by the Geneva‑based European Broadcasting Union.
About the Met
Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Met has a series of bold initiatives underway that are 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.
The company has recently formed a groundbreaking commissioning program in partnership with New York’s Lincoln Center Theater, to provide renowned composers and playwrights with the resources to create and develop new works at the Met and at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater.
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 attract new audiences and 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 will triple in 2007-08 to reach over 600 participating venues in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. These performances will subsequently air on PBS, and a selection of these HD performances will be available on DVD 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 once every week during the opera season with support from RealNetworks®.
The Met has recently launched several audience development initiatives, including Open House dress rehearsals, the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, reduced ticket prices—including an immensely popular new rush ticket program, and an annual Holiday Series presentation for families.