Works & Process at the Guggenheim Announces The Metropolitan Opera: RUSALKA

On Monday, January 23, 2017 at 7:30pm, Works & Process at the Guggenheim will host an interview led by general manager Peter Gelb with Maestro Mark Elder and director Mary Zimmerman, who will speak about her wondrous approach to Dvo?ák'soperatic fairy tale Rusalka prior to its opening at the Metropolitan Opera on February 2, 2017. Singers Kristine Opolais, Jamie Barton, and Eric Owens will perform excerpts accompanied on piano by Met Assistant Conductor Bryan Wagorn.

Tickets & Venue $40, $35 Guggenheim members and Friends of Works & Process. $10 Student Rush Tickets available one hour prior to each performance if space allows (for students under 25 with valid ID). Box Office (212) 423-3575, (M-F, 1-5pm) or online at worksandprocess.orgPeter B. Lewis TheaterSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum1071 Fifth Avenue, New York

Mary Zimmerman is the recipient of a 1998 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play and numerous Jeff Awards (including Best Production and Best Direction). She is the Manilow Resident Director of Goodman Theatre, a member of Lookingglass Theatre Company and a professor of performance studies at Northwestern University. Ms. Zimmerman most recently adapted and directed Treasure Island, which appeared at Lookingglass Theatre Company this fall and will appear at Berkeley Repertory Theatre this spring. She has also adapted and directed Metamorphoses, which appeared on Broadway and at Lookingglass Theatre Company, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum and Second Stage Theatre; The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci at the Goodman, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Second Stage Theatre; Journey to the West at the Goodman, the Huntington Theatre Company and Berkeley Repertory Theatre; The Odyssey at Lookingglass Theatre Company, the Goodman, McCarter Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre; Mirror of the Invisible World and Silk, both at the Goodman; Arabian Nightsat Lookingglass Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Kansas City Repertory Theatre;Argonautika at Lookingglass Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre Company and McCarter Theatre; The Secret in the Wings at Lookingglass Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, McCarter Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre; Eleven Rooms of Proustat Lookingglass Theatre Company and About Face Theatre (co-produced by the Goodman); a new opera with Philip Glass, Galileo Galilei, at the Goodman, The Barbican in London and Brooklyn Academy Of Music; Candide at the Goodman, the Shakespeare Theatre Company and the Huntington Theatre Company; The Jungle Book at the Goodman and Huntington Theatre Company, and The White Snakeat the Goodman, McCarter Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in China. In addition, Ms. Zimmerman has directed Shakespeare's Pericles and All's Well That Ends Well at the Goodman and Henry VIII andMeasure for Measure at New York Theater Festival's Shakespeare in the Park. She made her Metropolitan Opera directorial debut in 2007 withLucia di Lammermoor, which she also directed at La Scala in Milan in 2014. Subsequent Met productions include Armida, La Sonnambulaand the upcoming Rusalka in 2017.

Peter Gelb's career has followed a singular arc that began with his teenage years as an usher at the Metropolitan Opera and led to his appointment, in August 2006, as the storied company's 16th general manager. Now ending his tenth season at the helm of the Met, Mr. Gelb has overseen the launch of a number of initiatives aimed at revitalizing opera and connecting it to a wider audience. One of his fundamental goals has been to recruit the world's great theater directors to enhance the theatricality of the Met's productions and complement the extraordinary musical standards established by Music Director Emeritus James Levine. One of the most successful and trailblazing of his new initiatives is The Met: Live in HD, a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning series of live performance transmissions shown in high definition in movie theaters. The Met's HD programs have raised global awareness of opera, inspiring other institutions throughout the world that are in need of revitalization. Mr. Gelb has also made a priority of revitalizing the repertory with new productions of both classic operas and modern masterpieces. Since he took over with the 2006-07 season, the Met has presented 66 new stagings by some of the world's greatest theater, film, and opera directors. Mr. Gelb's extensive and varied experience in the field of classical music has prepared him for the considerable challenge of overseeing both the artistic and the administrative aspects of one of the largest performing arts institutions in the world. Under Mr. Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera has once again taken a leadership role among opera houses and other arts organizations, not only in the U.S. but around the world, providing a model for other groups with its groundbreaking artistic and public initiatives. Mr. Gelb today shares his message regularly through keynote addresses and discussions at conferences in the U.S. and abroad. Time magazine named Mr. Gelb a 2008 honoree of the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2010, France honored him as an Officier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2012 he received the Diplomacy Award of the Foreign Policy Association. In 2013, he received the Sanford Prize from the Yale School of Music and was named Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur by the French President.

The Metropolitan Opera is a vibrant home for the most creative and talented singers, conductors, composers, musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers from around the world. Known as the venue for the world's greatest voices, the Met has been under the musical direction of James Levine since 1976. Maestro Levine is credited with having created one of opera's finest orchestras and choruses. The Metropolitan Opera has always engaged many of the world's most important artists. Christine Nilsson and Marcella Sembrich shared leading roles during the opening season in 1883. Today, the Met continues to present the best available talent from around the world and also discovers and trains artists through its National Council Auditions and Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.The Met has given the U.S. premieres of some of the most important operas in the repertory. Each season the Met stages more than 200 opera performances in New York. More than 800,000 people attend the performances in the opera house during the season, and millions more experience the Met through new media distribution initiatives and state-of-the-art technology.www.metopera.org

Works & Process at the Guggenheim
For over 31 years and in over 400 productions, New Yorkers have been able to see, hear, and meet the most acclaimed artists in the world, in an intimate setting unlike any other. Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, has championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. Each performance takes place in the Guggenheim's intimate Frank Lloyd Wright-designed 285-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. Described bythe New York Times as "an exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process," Works & Process is produced by founder Mary Sharp Cronson. worksandprocess.org.