The Metropolitan Opera has announced its 2022-2023 season, which will feature the world premiere staging of The Hours, company premieres of Champion, Fedora, Lohengrin, Don Giovanni, and Die Zauberflöte. The season will open September 27 with the Met premiere of Medea.
Soprano Radvanovsky will star as Medea alongside tenor Matthew Polenzani in the new staging of Cherubini's rarely performed opera from David McVicar. They will be joined by soprano Janai Brugger, bass Michele Pertusi, and mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova. Carlo Rizzi will conduct.
The world premiere staging of The Hours opens November 22. This adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel features a libretto by Greg Pierce and conducting by Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In an anticipated return to the Met, opera favorite and soprano Renée Fleming will sing alongside Tony winner Kelli O'Hara and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who portray three women from different eras. Phelim McDermott will direct.
Opening on the last day of the year, Umberto Giordano's Fedora will begin its run December 31. The opera returns to the Met for the first time in 25 years with soprano Sonya Yoncheva in the title role opposite tenor Piotr Beczala. Also in the production are soprano Rosa Feola and baritone Artur Ruciński. McVicar will direct alongside Marco Armiliato, who will conduct.
Lohengrin will open February 26, 2023, under the direction of François Girard and conducting by Nézet-Séguin and Patrick Furrer. The Wagner opera returns after 17 years with a cast led by Beczala and featuring sopranos Tamara Wilson, Elena Stikhina, and Christine Goerke as well as bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin and bass Günther Groissböck.
Champion, the first opera written by composer and Grammy winner Terence Blanchard and featuring a libretto by Michael Cristofer, will make its Met premiere April 10, 2023. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green will tell the story of boxer Emile Griffith alongside bass-baritone Eric Owens, who portrays Griffith's older self. The cast will be completed by soprano Latonia Moore and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe. The production will feature conducting by Nézet-Séguin and direction by James Robinson.
The season will finish out with two operas from Mozart. First, Don Giovanni will open May 5, 2023, with the Met debuts of Tony-winning director Ivo van Hove and conductor Nathalie Stutzmann. Leading the cast will be baritone Peter Mattei alongside bass-baritone Adam Plachetka. Sopranos Federica Lombardi, Ana María Martínez, and Sing Fang and tenor Ben Bliss will round out the cast.
The second Mozart opera will be Die Zauberflöte, opening May 19, 2023. Also conducted by Stutzmann, director and choreographer Simon McBurney will make his Met debut. The cast features sopranos Erin Morley and Kathryn Lewek, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, baritone Thomas Oliemans, baritone Thomas Oliemans in his Met debut, and bass Stephen Milling.
Interspersed with these productions will be the following revivals: Mozart's Idomeneo, Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Puccini's Tosca, Britten's Peter Grimes, Verdi's La Traviata, Verdi's Don Carlo, Verdi's Rigoletto, Verdi's Aida, Mozart's The Magic Flute, Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, Bellini's Norma, Verdi's Falstaff, Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, Puccini's La Bohème, and Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer.
The revivals will feature several Met debuts, including conductors Manfred Honeck, Keri-Lynn Wilson, Speranza Scappucci, Duncan Ward, and Jaap van Zweden as well as soprano Sabine Devieilhe, mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, and tenors Benjamin Bernheim and Xabier Anduaga. Making Met role debuts are soprano Lise Davidsen and mezzo-sopranos Isabel Leonard and Alice Coote.
Special events for the season will include performances at Carnegie Hall by the Met Orchestra and Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble as well as the Grand Finals Concert of the Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition in addition to Met Opera's streaming and educational offerings.
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