James Levine Returns to the Met to Conduct Three Operas; Full Season Announced Including Nico Muhly, Craig Lucas, Bartlett Sher & More!

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 season will feature many of the world's greatest singers, conductors, and theater artists in 26 operas, including six new productions, of a varied repertory that ranges from the Baroque era to the 21st century. Met Music Director James Levine will return to the Met podium for the first time in two years, conducting three operas with which he has long been associated: a new production of Verdi's final masterpiece Falstaff, Mozart's Così fan tutte, and Berg's Wozzeck. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will be conducting two operas in the 2013-14 season, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

Ten of the new season's more than 200 performances will be transmitted live around the world as part of the popular Met: Live in HD series of movie theater simulcasts, offering a significant portion of the Met season to opera lovers in 64 countries. (A separate release, focused on the HD transmissions, is also available.)

The six new productions will include three debuts by directors new to the Met: Deborah Warner, with a new Eugene Onegin on opening night, September 23, starring Anna Netrebko, Mariusz Kwiecien, and Piotr Beczala and conducted by Valery Gergiev; Jeremy Sams, whose staging of Die Fledermaus will open on New Year's Eve, conducted by Adam Fischer and featuring new dialogue by playwright Douglas Carter Beane; and Dmitri Tcherniakov, with Borodin's Prince Igor on February 6, 2014, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and starring Ildar Abdrazakov in the title role. Nico Muhly's opera Two Boys, a Met commission, will have its American premiere October 21 in a production conducted by David Robertson and directed by Bartlett Sher. Robert Carsen returns to the Met with a new Falstaff, opening December 6, and Richard Eyre stages the final new production of the season, Massenet's Werther, starring Jonas Kaufmann and El?na Garan?a, opening February 18.

The repertory productions for the season will include a mix of rarely performed works and longtime audience favorites, both featuring some of the world's greatest stars. The 2013-14 repertory operas include Richard Strauss's Arabella, Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Der Rosenkavalier (with Garan?a in her first Met performances of Octavian). Five bel canto operas are part of the season, including Bellini's I Puritani, Norma (with Sondra Radvanovsky), and La Sonnambula (with Diana Damrau); Fabio Luisi leads Rossini's La Cenerentola, with Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez; and Anna Netrebko reprises her Adina opposite Ramón Vargas as Nemorino in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore. Three of Puccini's most-performed works are part of the season: casts led by Joseph Calleja and Vittorio Grigolo star in La Bohème; Patricia Racette and Radvanovsky take the title role of Tosca; and Madama Butterfly returns, with rotating casts including Kristine Opolais in her Met role debut as Cio-Cio-San. Mozart is represented in the season with both Così fan tutte and a holiday presentation of The Magic Flute. Renée Fleming returns to the title role in Dvo?ák's Rusalka, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Racette and Marcelo Álvarez star in Giordano's Andrea Chénier. The season features the first Met revivals of The Enchanted Island (with Susan Graham and Plácido Domingo) and the William Kentridge production of Shostakovich's The Nose (conducted by Gergiev), as well as the return of Michael Mayer's new production of Verdi's Rigoletto, starring Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the title role. Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream returns to commemorate the composer's centennial in a revival conducted by James Conlon, and Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson make Met role debuts in another twentieth-century masterpiece, Berg's Wozzeck.