CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA AND PAGLIACCIE Opens at the Met, 4/14

The Met's first new production in 45 years of the enduringly popular verismo double bill, Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, will open April 14. The staging, by Sir David McVicar, will be conducted by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi. Marcelo Álvarez will star in both halves of the evening, as the callous Turiddu in Cavalleria and the vengeful clown Canio in Pagliacci, with Eva-Maria Westbroek as Santuzza, the wronged Sicilian heroine of Cavalleria and Patricia Racette as Nedda, the flirtatious performer who incites her husband to shocking violence in Pagliacci. George Gagnidze will also star in both operas, singing the principal baritones roles of Alfio in Cavalleria and Tonio in Pagliacci, while Lucas Meachem will sing Silvio, Nedda's secret lover in Pagliacci. Carl Tanner will sing Turiddu on May 2 and Canio on May 5, and Alexey Lavrov will sing Silvio on May 5 and 8.

While the two pieces-the best-known examples of the verismo operatic genre-have different composers and unrelated storylines, they are almost always paired together in modern performance, a practice that began at the Met in 1893. The April 25 performance of the new production will be transmitted worldwide as the final installment in the Met's 2014-15 Live in HD season. The series now reaches more than 2,000 movie theaters in 70 countries around the world.

David McVicar made his Met debut in 2009 with a critically acclaimed new staging of Verdi's Il Trovatore. His subsequent stagings for the company have included the Met's first-ever productions of both Donizetti's Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda, and the 2013 new production of Handel's Giulio Cesare. Next season at the Met, he will direct the company premiere of the final opera in Donizetti's "Tudor Queens" trilogy, Roberto Devereux; over the course of the season, all three of his productions will be presented with the same soprano, Sondra Radvanovsky, in the central role of each.

Fabio Luisi made his Met debut with Verdi's Don Carlo in 2005 and has since led an eclectic repertory of 25 operas as well as five concerts with the MET Orchestra. Among his most notable performances have been Verdi's Macbeth, earlier this season; Wagner's entire Ring cycle; a new production of Richard Strauss's rarely heard Die Ägyptische Helena; Berlioz's epic Les Troyens; and new productions of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Massenet's Manon. He also conducts four performances of Lehár's The Merry Widow at the Met this spring, with Susan Graham in the central role.

Marcelo Álvarez makes his role debut as Turiddu with this production. He recently sang Canio to acclaim with the Opera de Monte Carlo. He has sung more than 110 Met performances in 12 roles, most recently the title character in Giordano's Andrea Chénier; Gustavo III in the new production of Un Ballo in Maschera; Radamès in Verdi's Aida; Cavaradossi in the new production of Puccini's Tosca; and Manrico in McVicar's new production of Il Trovatore. Next season, he will sing his first Met performances of the fearless hero Calàf in Puccini's Turandot.

Earlier this season, Eva-Maria Westbroek sang the title role in a critically heralded Met revival of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The Dutch soprano made her Met debut as Sieglinde in the new production of Wagner's Die Walküre and also starred in a rare revival of Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini. Next season, she will add another role to her company repertory when she sings her first Met performances of Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser.

Patricia Racette has sung more than 160 Met performances over the course of her 20-year career with the company, including Nedda in 2005 and 2006. Her recent roles with the company have included Maddalena in Andrea Chénier, opposite Álvarez; Madame Lidoine in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites; the title role in Puccini's Tosca; and the leading roles in all three operas that comprise Puccini's Il Trittico: Giorgetta in Il Tabarro, the title character in Suor Angelica, and Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi. Next season, she will reprise one of her most acclaimed roles, Cio-Cio-San in Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

George Gagnidze made his Met debut in 2009 in the title role of Verdi's Rigoletto, a role he repeated with the company in 2010 and 2013. His other Met performances have included Scarpia in the new production of Tosca, the title role in Macbeth, and Shaklovity in Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina. Earlier this season, he sang Amonasro in Verdi's Aida. Next season, he will reprise his Scarpia and sing Tonio in a revival of Pagliacci.

Lucas Meachem's previous Met roles include General Rayevsky in Prokofiev's War and Peace and Mercutio in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. His other performances this season have included Figaro in both Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia (with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden and San Francisco Opera) and in John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles (with Los Angeles Opera), as well as Marcello in Puccini's La Bohème with the Royal Opera and, this summer, Robert in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta with Monte Carlo Opera.

Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci Live in HD and Radio Broadcasts

The April 25 matinee performance of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci will be transmitted live around the world at 12:30 p.m. ET as the final presentation of the Met's 2014-15 Live in HD season. The transmission, hosted by Susan Graham, will be seen in more than 2,000 movie theaters in 70 countries around the world.

The April 14 opening performance will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS XM Channel 74, as will the performances on April 21 and 25. The April 14 performance will also be streamed live on the Met's Web site, www.metopera.org.

The April 25 matinee performance will be broadcast live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.

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