Great Performances at the Met

The season nine premiere of Great Performances at the Met is Mozart’s elegant masterpiece of marital discord, Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and staged by Richard Eyre. Ildar Abdrazakov sings the title role, Marlis Petersen plays Figaro’s quick-witted bride-to-be, Susanna, and Peter Mattei is Count Almaviva.

The starry cast includes Serbian baritone Željko Lučić in the title role; Russian star soprano Anna Netrebko in her North American debut as the fatally ambitious Lady Macbeth; German bass René Pape as Banquo, one of the victims of Macbeth’s bloody rise to the throne; and Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja as Macbeth’s heroic rival Macduff. Originally broadcast live in movie theaters as part of The Met: Live in HD series.

Acclaimed director Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen stars Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili in the title role of the seductive gypsy, a part she has sung to acclaim at many of the world’s leading opera houses. Aleksandrs Antonenko sings the obsessed soldier Don José, soprano Anita Hartig is Micaëla, and Ildar Abdrazakov is the toreador Escamillo, led by Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado. Originally broadcast live in movie theaters as part of The Met: Live in HD series.

In an acclaimed staging by Bartlett Sher, Il Barbiere di Siviglia stars Lawrence Brownlee as the lovestruck Count Almaviva; Isabel Leonard as Rosina, the feisty ward who captures his heart; and Christopher Maltman in his first Met performances of Figaro, the title barber whose skills extend far beyond hair-cutting. Originally broadcast live in movie theaters as part of The Met: Live in HD series.

Met Music Director James Levine leads Wagner’s grand comedy Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Master-Singer of Nuremberg). German baritone Michael Volle stars as cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, with South African tenor Johan Botha as Walther, German soprano Annette Dasch as Eva, German baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle in his Met debut as Beckmesser, German bass Hans-Peter König as Pogner, American tenor Paul Appleby as David, and Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill as Magdalene. Originally broadcast live in movie theaters as part of The Met: Live in HD series.

Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo stars as the tortured poet unlucky in love in Broadway director Bartlett Sher's production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Originally broadcast live in movie theaters as part of The Met: Live in HD series.

Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman, whose many credits include the Tony Award-winning musicals Crazy for You, Contact, and The Producers, makes her Met debut with a lavish new staging of Lehár’s effervescent operetta The Merry Widow. Star soprano Renée Fleming adds a beguiling new character to her wide-ranging Met repertory as Hanna, the widowed Pontevedrian millionairess.

Valery Gergiev conducts the double bill, which is a co-production with Teatr Wielki-Polish National Opera. Anna Netrebko stars as the title character in Iolanta, with Piotr Beczala and Aleksei Markov as Vaudémont and Robert, two rivals for her love. Nadja Michael sings the central role of Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, with Mikhail Petrenko as her mysterious and menacing new husband.

Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez star in Rossini’s La Donna del Lago, the Met’s first production of the bel canto showcase.

Sir David McVicar directs the first new Met production of the popular verismo double bill in 45 years, with Argentinean tenor Marcelo Álvarez making his company role debut in both leading tenor parts: the unrepentant seducer Turiddu and the clown Canio. Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek sings the role of Santuzza, the abandoned woman at the heart of Cavalleria Rusticana, and American soprano Patricia Racette stars as Canio’s ill-fated wife Nedda in Pagliacci. George Gagnidze also stars in both operas, singing the principal baritone roles of Alfio in Cavalleria and Tonio in Pagliacci. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads both operas.