THE ENCHANTED ISLAND Debuts at the Metropolitan Opera, 12/31

The Enchanted Island, a world premiere work that combines Baroque music with a new, English-language libretto featuring characters from Shakespeare's The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream, will premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on December 31, 2011.

Devised and written by the acclaimed British theater artist Jeremy Sams in his Met debut, The Enchanted Island will be conducted by renowned Baroque specialist William Christie and seen in a fantastical production by director Phelim McDermott and scenic designer Julian Crouch that blends 18^th-century theatrical techniques with advanced video projection designs. The cast includes a number of the world's leading virtuoso singers. Joyce DiDonato stars as the sorceress Sycorax and David Daniels is her supernatural foe, the sorcerer Prospero; also featured are Plácido Domingo as Neptune, god of the seas; Danielle De Niese as the air spirit Ariel; Lisette Oropesa as Prospero's daughter Miranda; Anthony Roth Costanzo as the shipwrecked prince Ferdinand; and Luca Pisaroni as Sycorax's monstrous son Caliban. The creative team for The Enchanted Islandalso includes costume designer Kevin Pollard, lighting designer Brian MacDevitt, animation and projection designers Fifty Nine Productions, and choreographer Graciela Daniele. The musical advisor for the production is Ellen Rosand. The January 21 performance will be transmitted live around the world as part of the The Met: Live in HD series, which is now seen in more than 1,600 movie theaters in 54 countries.

The Enchanted Island is a contemporary take on the 18^th-century tradition of operatic "pasticcios" (pastiches), in which new librettos were combined with music from various compositions to create entirely new theatrical pieces. The tradition was particularly popular in London, where Handel was a prominent practitioner. The score for The Enchanted Island comprises selections from a variety of Baroque operas, cantatas, and oratorios, many of which are rarely performed in contemporary opera houses.

The score includes music from many Handel works, specifically the operas Alcina, Amadigi di Gaula, Ariodante, Atalanta, Deidamia, Partenope, Semele, Tamerlano, and Teseo; the oratorios Hercules, Judas Maccabaeus, La Resurrezione, Susanna, and Il Trionfo del Tempo a del Disinganno; the cantatas "Tanti strali al sen mi scocchi" and "Notte placida e cheta"; the ode "L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato"; and "Zadok the Priest," one of the composer's Four Coronation Anthems.

The other works represented in The Enchanted Island are Vivaldi's operas Argippo, Il Bajazet, Farnace,  Griselda, Tito Manlio, and La Verità in Cimento, his cantata "Cessate, omai cessate," and his motet for contralto; Rameau's operas Castor et Pollux, Hippolyte et Aricie, and Les Indes Galantes; Campra's opera Idoménée; Ferrandini's cantata "Il Pianto di Maria," often attributed to Handel; and Leclair's opera Scylla et Glaucus.

Sams, a noted British stage director, writer, translator, composer, and lyricist, has created an English-language libretto for The Enchanted Island that combines the plots of two Shakespeare plays. In Sams's story, the bitter supernatural war between The Tempest's Prospero and his nemesis, the sorceress Sycorax, is interrupted by a quartet of unexpected island visitors: the four lovers from A Midsummer Night's Dream, whose honeymoon cruise has ended in a shipwreck. The ensuing conflicts and romantic entanglements also involve Prospero's daughter Miranda, Sycorax's monstrous son Caliban, the shipwrecked prince Ferdinand, the air spirit Ariel, and Neptune, king of the undersea world.

Renowned Baroque specialist Christie made his Met debut last season leading Mozart's Così fan tutte. His adventurous explorations into the Baroque repertory, particularly with his ensemble Les Arts Florissants, have earned him an international reputation as a consummate musician and historian.  In France, where he lives, he has been presented with a Legion of Honor and granted membership in both the Order of Arts and Letters and the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

This will be the team of McDermott and Crouch's third engagement at the Met, following the 125^th Anniversary Gala and the widely praised Met premiere staging of Philip Glass's Satyagraha. Costume designer Pollard made his Met debut with Satyagraha and lighting designer MacDevitt designed the Met premieres of Adams's Doctor Atomic and Rossini's Armida and Le Comte Ory. Fifty Nine Productions, who provided projection design for McDermott and Crouch's previous two Met productions, recently designed animation and projections for Broadway's Tony Award-winning War Horse. Broadway choreographer Daniele returns to the Met following her debut with Rossini's Armida in the 2009-10 season.

DiDonato's most recent Met appearances were as the Composer in last season's revival of Strauss's Ariadne aufNaxos and as Isolier in the Met premiere of Le Comte Ory. She has also sung Rosina in Rossini's IL Barbiere di Siviglia-a performance that was transmitted worldwide as part of The Met: Live in HD series-and the trouser roles of Cherubino in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Stéphano in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. Daniels's Met starring roles have included Orfeo in the new production of Orfeo ed Euridice (2007 and 2011), Bertarido in the Met premiere of Handel's Rodelinda (2004), both Sesto and the title character in Handel's Giulio Cesare, and Oberon in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Since his debut in 1968, Domingo has sung more than 600 Met performances in an ever-expanding repertory. His most recent appearances include Orest in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride (transmitted live in HD last season), the title character in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, Maurizio in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, and Emperor Qin in the world premiere of Dun's The First Emperor (2006). This season, he will conduct a revival of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, beginning December 5.  

De Niese, a frequent collaborator with Maestro Christie, made her Met debut as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro in 1999. Her subsequent roles have included Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare, Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Despina in Così fan tutte. Earlier this season, Pisaroni sang Leporello in the new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Met audiences have also heard him as Publio in Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito and the title character in Le Nozze di Figaro. Oropesa's Met appearances have included Lisette in the new production of Puccini's La Rondine (2008), Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Amore in Orfeo ed Euridice, and the Rhinemaiden Woglinde in the 2010 new production of Wagner's Das Rheingold. Costanzo, a 2009 National Council Grand Finals winner, makes his Met debut this season as Unulfo in Rodelinda.

The four Midsummer lovers will be sung by Layla Claire (Hermia), Elizabeth DeShong (Helena), Paul Appleby(Demetrius), and Elliot Madore (Lysander, in his Met debut). Claire, Appleby, and Madore are currently members of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.