Soprano So Young Park to Play Juliette in This Afternoon's ROMEO ET JULIETTE at Met Opera

Soprano So Young Park will sing the role of Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette in the Saturday, March 30th afternoon performance, replacing Nadine Sierra, who has withdrawn due to illness.

So Young Park made her Metropolitan Opera debut as the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute in 2019. She also performed the role with several leading opera houses, including Los Angeles Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Michigan Opera Theatre and Boston Lyric Opera. Park's other highlights included Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Gilda in Rigoletto with Michigan Opera Theatre and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Setsuko in An American Dream with Lyric Opera of Chicago, and several roles with LA Opera including Miss Schlessen in Glass's Satyagraha, Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Olympia in Les contes d'Hoffmann.

Benjamin Bernheim plays Romeo in this production of Gounod’s sumptuous Shakespeare adaptation, with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct Bartlett Sher’s towering production.

The production also features mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as Stéphano and baritone Will Liverman as Mercutio. Hankey sang the role of Octavian in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier last season, which The New York Times named one of the performances of the year. Liverman returns to the Met stage after starring as Malcolm in Anthony Davis's X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X earlier this season. Rounding out the principal cast are tenor Frederick Ballentine as Tybalt and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Frère Laurent.

Gounod's Roméo et Juliette has been performed 349 times at the Met since its company premiere on April 16, 1884. Sher's production of Roméo et Juliette had its first Met performance on December 31, 2016. The creative team includes set designer Michael Yeargan, costume designer Catherine Zuber, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton, choreographer Chase Brock, and fight director B. H. Barry.

For more information, visit metopera.org.