Seiji Ozawa Returns to Met to Conduct QUEEN OF SPADES Starting 11/21

After an absence of more than 15 years, maestro Seiji Ozawa returns to the Met to conduct six performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, from November 21 to December 13, 2008. Tenor Ben Heppner reprises the role of the obsessive gambler Ghermann, which he first sang at the Met in the 1995 premiere of Elijah Moshinsky’s production. Soprano Maria Guleghina portrays Lisa, the innocent woman drawn into Ghermann’s descent into madness. The cast also includes mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer as the Countess, who holds the secret of cards sought by Ghermann, mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk as Lisa’s friend and confidante Pauline, baritone Mark Delavan as Count Tomsky, and baritone Vladimir Stoyanov as the spurned Prince Yeletsky. J. David Jackson conducts the performance on November 29.

Acknowledged as one of the world’s great conductors, Japanese maestro Seiji Ozawa made his Met debut (and only previous Met performances) in 1992 with another Tchaikovsky favorite, Eugene Onegin. Currently the Principal Conductor of the Vienna State Opera, he leads performances of The Queen of Spades, Die Zauberflöte, and Eugene Onegin there during the current season. From 1973 to 2002, he was Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the longest-serving Music Director in the prestigious orchestra’s history. He has previously conducted The Queen of Spades at La Scala and the Vienna State Opera, among his many appearances in the leading opera theaters of the world.

Canadian native Ben Heppner, widely regarded as one of the top heroic tenors of our time, has sung a wide-ranging repertoire at the Met, including Walther in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Florestan in Beethoven's Fidelio, Aeneas in Berlioz’s Les Troyens and the title roles in Wagner's Parsifal, Lohengrin, and Tristan und Isolde, and Giordano's Andrea Chénier. A winner of the Met’s National Council Auditions in 1988, Heppner made his Met debut in the title role of Mozart’s Idomeneo in 1991. He is scheduled to sing his first Siegfrieds at the Met in the new production of Wagner’s Ring cycle in 2011-12.

This season, Maria Guleghina sings Lisa in Queen of Spades, the only Met role she sings in her native Russian, and makes her role debut as Adriana Lecouvreur with Placido Domingo in January. Since her 1991 Met debut as Maddalena in Andrea Chénier, she has been heard in more than 100 performances with the company. She has appeared twice in The Met: Live in HD series, as Lady Macbeth in last season’s new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, and Giorgetta in Il Tabarro. Her other roles at the Met include Dolly in the company premiere of Sly, and the title roles in Tosca, Norma, and Aida.

 Felicity Palmer returns to the role of the Countess, which she sang at the Met in 2004. Last season, she appeared as Mrs. Sedley in the Met’s new production of Peter Grimes and the Marquise of Berkenfield in the new production of La Fille du Régiment, both shown as part of The Met: Live in HD series. Her company debut in 2000 was as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, and she has since appeared as Fricka in Das Rheingold, Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande, and the First Prioress in Les Dialogues des Carmélites.

Born in Minsk, Ekaterina Semenchuk achieved international recognition as a member of St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre. Last season, she sang Sonya in War and Peace, the role of her 2002 Met debut. She returns in January to sing Olga in Eugene Onegin, a role she recently performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

 American Mark Delavan has made an international reputation singing dramatic baritone roles, including Amonasro in Aida, the role of his Met debut in 2001, Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca, and the title roles in Nabucco and Simon Boccanegra.

Bulgarian baritone Vladimir Stoyanov sang Enrico in the Met’s Lucia di Lammermoor earlier this season. His most recent engagements include the title roles of Attila and Falstaff in Naples, Germont in La Traviata in Vienna and Teatro la Fenice in Venice, Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, and Enrico in Lucia at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
          
Live broadcasts to be seen and heard around the world

The Queen of Spades will be heard by millions of people around the world this season on the radio and the web, through distribution platforms the Met has established with various media partners.

The Saturday matinee performance on December 13 will be broadcast live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.

The season premiere on November 21 will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio channel 78, as will the performances on November 24 and December 3, and the December 13 matinee.

The performance on November 21 will also be available via RealNetworks internet streaming at the Met’s web site, www.metopera.org.
 

About the Met

Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Met has a series of bold initiatives underway that are designed to broaden its audience and revitalize the company’s repertory.  The Met has made a commitment to presenting modern masterpieces alongside the classic repertory, with highly theatrical productions featuring the greatest opera stars in the world.

The Metropolitan Opera’s 2008-09 season pays tribute to the company’s extraordinary history on the occasion of its 125th anniversary, while also emphasizing the Met’s renewed commitment to advancing the art form. The season features six new productions, 18 revivals, the final performances of Otto Schenk’s production of Wagner’s Ring cycle conducted by Levine, and two gala celebrations; the galas include the season-opening performance featuring Renée Fleming as well as a 125th anniversary celebration on March 15.  New productions include the company premiere of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic as well as the Met’s first staged production of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust since 1906, Massenet’s Thaïs, Puccini’s La Rondine, Verdi’s Il Trovatore, and Bellini’s La Sonnambula.

Building on its 77-year-old radio broadcast history – currently heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network – the Met now uses advanced media distribution platforms and state-of-the-art technology to attract new audiences and reach millions of opera fans around the world.

The Met: Live in HD series reached more than 935,000 people in the 2007-08 season, more than the number of people who saw performances in the opera house.  These performances began airing on PBS in March 2008, and eight of these HD performances are now available on DVD, on the EMI and Universal labels.  In the 2008-09 season, the HD series expands to feature 11 live transmissions, starting with the Met’s Opening Night Gala and spanning the entire season. The HD productions are seen this season in over 850 theaters in 28 countries around the world. Five new productions are featured, including the Met premiere of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic. The Opening Night transmission was seen in the Americas only; the remaining ten high-definition productions are shown live worldwide on Saturdays through May 9 with encores scheduled at various times.

Live in HD in Schools, the Met’s new program offering free opera transmissions to New York City schools in partnership with the New York City Department of Education and the Metropolitan Opera Guild, reached more than 7,000 public school students and teachers during the 2007-08 season. This season, Live in HD in Schools expands to reach schools in 18 cities and communities nationwide.

Continuing its innovative use of electronic media to reach a global audience, the Metropolitan Opera introduces Met Player, a new subscription service that will make its extensive video and audio catalog of full-length performances available to the public for the first time online, and in exceptional, state-of-the-art quality. During the first month of the new service, 120 historic audio recordings and 50 full-length opera videos will be available, including over a dozen of the company’s acclaimed The Met: Live in HD transmissions, known for their extraordinary sound and picture quality.  New content, including HD productions and archival broadcasts, will be added monthly.

Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS channel 78 is a subscription-based audio entertainment service broadcasting both an unprecedented number of live performances each week throughout the Met’s entire season, as well as rare historical performances, newly restored and remastered, spanning the Met’s 77-year broadcast history.

In addition to providing audio recordings through the new Met on Rhapsody on-demand service, the Met also presents free live audio streaming of performances on its website once every week during the opera season with support from RealNetworks®.

The company’s groundbreaking commissioning program in partnership with New York’s Lincoln Center Theater (LCT), provides renowned composers and playwrights with the resources to create and develop new works at the Met and at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater.  The Met’s partnership with LCT is part of the company’s larger initiative to commission new operas from contemporary composers, present modern masterpieces alongside the classic repertory, and provide a venue for artists to nurture their work.

The Met has launched several audience development initiatives such as the company’s Open House Dress Rehearsals, which are free and open to the public.  Two are planned for the 2008-09 season: La Damnation de Faust on November 4 and La Sonnambula on February 27.  Just prior to beginning the current season, the Met presented a free performance of the Verdi Requiem on September 18, in tribute to the late Luciano Pavarotti.  Other company initiatives include the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met which exhibits contemporary visual art; the immensely successful Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Rush Ticket program which provides deeply discounted orchestra seats two hours before curtain time; and an annual Holiday Series presentation for families.  This season’s special Holiday Presentation is Julie Taymor’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, an abridged, English-language version of the opera which is given four special matinee performances and one holiday evening performance as a way for families to celebrate the holiday season.

Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Opera

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