THE HOURS Starring Renée Fleming, Kelli O'Hara & Joyce DiDonato to Return to the Met

Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Kevin Puts’s The Hours, with a libretto by Greg Pierce, will return to the Met stage for eight performances starting Sunday, May 5, following its sold-out world-premiere production last season. The Hours is the first Met commission to be performed in consecutive seasons in almost 100 years. Nominated for a 2024 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for Days of Wine and Roses, Kelli O’Hara joins soprano Renée Fleming, a 2023 recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor, and acclaimed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, all reprising their roles as heroines from different eras in the operatic adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s novel about Virginia Woolf and her spiritual descendants. Kensho Watanabe returns to the podium following successes conducting selected performances of The Hours and Terence Blanchard’s Champion during the 2022–23 season.
 
Original cast members also returning for this run of The Hours include tenor William Burden as Louis, tenor Sean Panikkar as Leonard Woolf, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen as Richard, and bass-baritone Brandon Cedel as Dan Brown.
 
Led by director Phelim McDermott, the creative team includes set and costume director Tom Pye, lighting designer Bruno Poet, projection designer Finn Ross, choreographer Annie-B Parson (also a 2024 Tony nominee for Best Choreography for Here Lies Love), associate director Peter Relton, and dramaturg Paul Cremo.
 
The Hours was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. A recording of The Hours has recently been released on Warner Classics and is available for purchase. 
 

The Hours Broadcasts Online and on Radio

The May 10, 18, and 28 performances of The Hours will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on the SiriusXM app. The May 18 performance will also be broadcast over The Robert K. Johnson Foundation–Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network. Audio from the May 10 and 28 performances will also be streamed live on the Met’s website, metopera.org.
 
Photo credit: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera