conductor James Conlon

production

Graham Vick

set and costume designer Paul Brown

lighting designer Nick Chelton

choreographer Ron Howell

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

lady macbeth of mtsensk

general manager

Peter Gelb

music director

James Levine

principal conductor

Fabio Luisi

Opera in four acts

Libretto by the composer and Alexander Preis, based on the story by Nikolai Leskov

Thursday, November 13, 2014 7:30–10:45 pm

The production of Die Zauberflöte was

made possible by a generous gift from

Mr. and Mrs. Henry R. Kravis

Additional funding was received from

John Van Meter, The Annenberg Foundation,

Karen and Kevin Kennedy, Bill Rollnick and

Nancy Ellison Rollnick, Mr. and Mrs. William R.

Miller, Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman, and

Mr. and Mrs. Ezra K. Zilkha

The 17th Metropolitan Opera performance of

Thursday, November 13, 2014, 7:30–10:45PM

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH’S

lady macbeth of mtsenskin order of vocal appearance

conductor

James Conlon

k aterina lvovna ismailova, wife of zinov y borisovitch Eva-Maria Westbroekboris timofeevitch ismailov, her father- in-l aw Anatoli Kotschergazinov y borisovitch ismailov, his son Raymond Verymillhand Tyler Duncansergei, l aborer at the ismailovs’ Brandon Jovanovichdriver Dustin Lucasaksinya, the cook Holli Harrisonshabby peasant Allan Glassman*porter Brandon Cedel**steward Rod Nelman

foremen Kurt Phinney Daniel Clark Smith David Lowepriest Mikhail Kolelishvilipolice sergeant Vladimir Ognovenkopoliceman Earle Patriarcoteacher John McVeighan old convict Dmitry Belosselskiyprison guard Richard Bernsteinsonyetk a, a convict Oksana Volkovaa convict Kelly Cae Hoganprison officer Paul Corona

* Graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program

** Member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program

Yamaha is the Official Piano of the Metropolitan Opera.

Latecomers will not be admitted during the performance.

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Met TitlesTo activate, press the red button to the right of the screen in front of your seat and follow the instructions provided. To turn off the display, press the red button once again. If you have questions please ask an usher at intermission.

Chorus Master Donald PalumboAssistant to the Designer Rosalind CoombsMusical Preparation Yelena Kurdina, Joel Revzen,

Carol Isaac, Miloš Repický, and Natalia KatyukovaAssistant Stage Directors David Kneuss, Yefim Maizel, and

Peter McClintockStage Band Conductor Jeffrey GoldbergPrompter Yelena KurdinaMet Titles Sonya HaddadScenery, properties, and electrical props constructed

and painted in Metropolitan Opera ShopsCostumes executed by Metropolitan Opera

Costume DepartmentWigs and Makeup executed by Metropolitan Opera

Wig and Makeup Department

This production uses gunshot effects

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is performed by arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc., agents in the United States for Hans Sikorski, publisher and copyright owner.

This performance is made possible in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Before the performance begins, please switch off cell phones and other electronic devices.

Eva-Maria Westbroek and Brandon Jovanovich as Katerina and Sergei in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

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GIOACHINO ROSSINI

Il Barbieredi Siviglia (� e Barber of Seville)

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NOV 18, 22 mat, 26, 29 DEC 3, 6 matSTARRING:

Isabel Leonard, Lawrence Brownlee, and Christopher Maltman

ALSO ON THE MET STAGE THIS MONTH:

Carmen, The Death of Klinghoffer,Die Zauberfl öte, Aida, Lady Macbethof Mtsensk, La Bohème

“A sure-fi re hit... pitch-perfect... boldly inventive.” –THE NEW YORK TIMES

“A modern classic.” –THE NEW YORKER

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Synopsis

Act IKaterina, the young wife of Zinovy Ismailov, is bored with her life and loveless marriage. Her father-in-law, Boris, complains that she hasn’t produced an heir yet and warns her not to take a lover. When news arrives that a dam on an outlying part of their property has broken, Zinovy decides to oversee the repairs himself. Before he leaves, he points out to his father a new laborer named Sergei. Boris humiliates Katerina by making her swear in public that she will be faithful to her husband and by forcing her to her knees. The cook Aksinya gossips that the handsome Sergei was dismissed from his last job because the mistress fell for him.

The workers, led by Sergei, molest Aksinya. Katerina intervenes, defending the bravery of women and berating Sergei. He challenges her to a trial of strength. They wrestle, clearly attracted to each other, and Sergei pins her down just as Boris appears. Boris threatens to tell Zinovy about his wife’s behavior and sends them all back to work.

Later in her bedroom, Katerina reflects on her frustrated longings and her despair. On the pretext of wanting to borrow a book, Sergei knocks on the door. He seizes her and their embrace leads to passionate lovemaking.

Act IIThe sleepless Boris keeps watch over the house. Lost in memories of his youthful amorous adventures and seeing light in Katerina’s room, he decides to perform his son’s marital duties for him. At that moment he notices Sergei kissing Katerina

Act Iscene 1 The Ismailovs at homescene 2 The Ismailovs’ yardscene 3 Katerina’s bedroom

Act IIscene 1 The Ismailovs’ yardscene 2 Katerina’s bedroom

Intermission (aT APPROXIMATELY 9:15 PM)

Act IIIscene 1 Wedding preparationsscene 2 At the police stationscene 3 The wedding

Act IVscene 1 On the road to Siberia

36

Synopsis CONTINUED

goodbye at her window. He seizes Sergei as he climbs down and summons his daughter-in-law to watch as he flogs her lover. Locked in her room, Katerina is unable to defend Sergei, but she eventually climbs down and hurls herself at Boris. Sergei is locked in the storeroom. Boris demands food and sends a message to call Zinovy home. Katerina serves him mushrooms she has poisoned. Boris cries out for help and for a priest to hear his confession, but Katerina just takes his keys and goes to release Sergei. The priest arrives in time to hear Boris accuse his daughter-in-law of murder, but Katerina mourns so eloquently that all believe the dying man is raving.

In Katerina’s room, Sergei warns her that Zinovy’s return will bring an end to their love. As he falls asleep, she thinks about their future but becomes terrified when the ghost of Boris appears and curses her. Her screams wake Sergei, who sees nothing and calms Katerina. When they hear Zinovy approaching, Sergei hides. Zinovy enters and questions his wife. She responds with sarcasm, and he starts beating her with Sergei’s belt, which he noticed lying on the bed. Sergei rushes forward to defend her. Zinovy tries to escape, but Katerina strangles him with Sergei’s help. The lovers dispose of the body.

Act IIIOn their wedding day, Katerina and Sergei think about the hidden corpse. As they leave for the ceremony, a drunken peasant, in search of more liquor, breaks open the door and discovers the body.

At the local jail, a police sergeant and his men idly sing the praises of their profession and complain about the low pay. They question a teacher who is accused of being a nihilist, but even this diversion can’t compensate for the fact that none of them has been invited to Katerina’s wedding. When the peasant appears with news of having found a corpse at the Ismailovs’, they hurry off to investigate.

During the wedding feast Katerina suddenly notices that the lock has been broken. She tells Sergei they must leave immediately. As he goes to get money from the house, the police arrive. Katerina, realizing there is no point in resistance, holds out her wrists to be handcuffed. Sergei tries to escape but is captured.

Act IVOn the road to Siberia, convicts stop by a river for the night, men and women in separate groups. Katerina bribes a guard and finds Sergei, who blames her for ruining his life. Tormented by his rejection, she returns to her place. Meanwhile, Sergei flirts with another convict, the young Sonyetka, who promises to be his if he will get her a new pair of stockings. Sergei goes to Katerina, pretending he won’t be able to walk further unless she gives him her stockings. Katerina does and he immediately takes them to Sonyetka. Katerina watches helplessly as the other women taunt her. An officer orders everyone to get ready to continue the march. Katerina approaches Sonyetka and drags her off a bridge into the river where both are drowned.

37

Dmitri Shostakovich

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

In Focus

Premiere: Maly Opera Theater, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), 1934One of the undisputed operatic masterpieces of the last 100 years, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a bleak, existential drama that has had a tortured history off stage. The opera is based on a story by Nikolai Leskov published in 1865, a time when Russian literature was exploding into the world’s consciousness, led by such writers as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. (The reference to Shakespeare in the title reflects Russian aspirations toward global acknowledgment, similar to Turgenev’s Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District and King Lear of the Steppes). In Leskov’s story, Katerina Ismailova, a woman in rural Russia, is driven by boredom and an endless cycle of social degradation to adultery and multiple murders, including those of her lecherous father-in-law and his useless son, her husband. Relentless in its grimness and furious in its action, the story covers all these events in less than 50 pages. Shostakovich and his librettist, Alexander Preis, removed some detail and, notably, made Katerina more sympathetic. The opera maintains the novella’s frenetic pace with propulsive music and a plethora of activity, suggesting that any actions—even of the criminal variety—are preferable to the crushing ennui of conventional life. Lady Macbeth is satirical and critical of society, yet it retains a sharply focused narrative, with Shostakovich’s thrilling score accentuating each of its dramatic points. The opera was an immediate critical and popular success in the Soviet Union and abroad but fell out of favor in a dramatic fashion after Stalin attended a performance in 1936 in Moscow and an anonymous article appeared immediately afterwards in the leading Soviet newspaper, Pravda, denouncing the work. The realities of the time were such that Shostakovich feared for his life for several years. Lady Macbeth was rehabilitated by the 1970s and has since reclaimed its rightful place in the repertoire.

The CreatorsDmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975), one of the 20th century’s most prominent composers, wrote 15 symphonies and a large quantity of chamber music, as well as compositions in other genres. His operatic output includes Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and The Nose (1930, seen at the Met last season). He lived almost all of his life in his native St. Petersburg (later Leningrad), whose turbulent political history had a significant impact on his life and career. Playwright Alexander Preis (1906–1942) also collaborated with Shostakovich on The Nose. Nikolai Leskov (1831–1895) was a Russian author and journalist highly respected by many of the towering literary figures of his time. Several of his later works were banned due to their satirical treatment of the Russian Orthodox Church.

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The SettingThe opera takes place in the Mtsensk District, about 150 miles south of Moscow, and in Siberia, the vast, harsh land in the northeastern part of Russia, to which criminals were traditionally banished throughout the country’s history. The time was Leskov’s present day, the 1860s. The Met production is set in the mid-20th century.

The MusicThe score of Lady Macbeth is dramatic, diverse, and utterly compelling, displaying the composer’s complete mastery and transcendence of familiar musical forms. Despite the jagged feel of the music, melody is not absent: it appears briefly but often vanishes before it is allowed to develop. The main exception to this is the role of Katerina herself. Her forays into prolonged musical expression—particularly in loneliness and boredom in Act I, Scene 3, and in her reflective lament in the final act—make her a profound and, within the givens of this dark world, sympathetic character. Conversely, those around her are depicted through incomplete musical expression, and these characters’ grotesqueries are illustrated with parodies of musical and operatic conventions: Boris threatens his workers until they sing his praises in a waltz (a trenchant emblem of bourgeois hypocrisy); similarly, when he decides to approach Katerina’s bedroom, both his lust and his duplicity are expressed in a kind of warped waltz. The police also waltz, and the priest inexplicably breaks into dance ditties. The orchestra also provides both dramatic propulsion (typical of Shostakovich in all his works) and commentary: most famously, or infamously, in the depiction of Katerina and Sergei’s first illicit sexual encounter, which is brought to life in no uncertain and even comical terms, including trombone glissandos. Scenes are frequently connected by orchestral interludes that sometimes accentuate the action while at other times seem to provide contrary commentary. But the score always remains immediately accessible—in fact it is often the familiarity of the forms, such as the bouncy, hiccupping drinking song at the beginning of Act III, that make the music so disturbing in its theatrical context. There is one minor but important character whose genuine, not coincidentally folk-inspired melody sets him apart from the other, less human characters: this is the Old Convict, whose ruminations on the endless road of the exiles finds its response in the chorus. The affectations and deceits of society may be worthy of contempt, but the suffering of the people—infinite and unrelieved by superficial changes in government—is real and rightly demands our compassion.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the MetThe opera was first presented by the company on November 10, 1994, in the current production by Graham Vick, with Maria Ewing as Katerina, Sergei Koptchak as Boris, Vladimir Galouzine, in his Met debut, as Sergei, and James Conlon on the podium. The production returned in 2000 with Valery Gergiev conducting a cast led by Catherine Malfitano in the title role.

In Focus CONTINUED

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Program Note

It is one of those cruel twists of fate that Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (the most literal translation of its title) remains best known not so much for any of its considerable merits, but because it was the work singled out by Stalin

for denunciation. Before this took place, in January 1936, Shostakovich’s second opera had been widely touted as the first significant opera of the Soviet period. Lady Macbeth was thought to have opened the door to a distinctive and exciting new future for Soviet music theater and for its talented young creator.

What is surprising is that the opera didn’t even deal with a Soviet theme. But when Shostakovich settled on Nikolai Leskov’s popular 1864 horror story, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, as the basis for his opera it was with every intention of committing infidelity to the spirit of the literary original. What Shostakovich and his co-librettist Alexander Preis retained, besides the ironic title, were the main protagonists and the scaffolding of Leskov’s plot. Shostakovich’s departures from Leskov stemmed from his determination to transfigure his heroine, the provincial merchant’s wife Katerina Ismailova, from a repulsive murderess, a hideous animal, into a woman for whom—her crimes notwithstanding—the listener feels sympathy, a woman of passion and unfulfilled potential victimized by her time and repressive social environment. (She became, in the process, a kinswoman of her namesake in Alexander Ostrovsky’s The Storm and Janácek’s operatic adaptation of that play, Kát’a Kabanová.) The most telling alteration Shostakovich made in Leskov’s tale was the elimination of the murder of Katerina’s young nephew, an act motivated solely by greed. As Shostakovich wryly observed, “The murder of a child, no matter how it is explained, always makes a negative impression…”

In the opera, Shostakovich realizes his goal using a wide range of musical and dramatic means. He focuses a merciless lens on the men on whom Katerina’s life depends, her tyrannical and lecherous father-in-law, her wimpish, impotent husband, and her smooth-talking, opportunistic seducer, Sergei. The action of the opera is fleshed out with hilarious caricatures of Russian village types not found in Leskov’s story: the philosophical peasant drunk, the corrupt police sergeant attended by cringing toadies, the bumbling priest. Even the most ghastly of events—the murders of father-in-law and husband and the discovery of Zinovy’s rotting corpse—are undercut with cartoon-like satire.

Shostakovich referred to his opera as “tragi-satirical.” The satire is drawn in broad, bold strokes, depending for its effect on the recognition of familiar genres from music hall, circus, and operetta, as well as of parodied references to other operas (especially noteworthy are several allusions to Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov). Lady Macbeth was both more realistic in its dramaturgy and more accessible in its musical idiom than Shostakovich’s previous opera, The Nose (1928). Shostakovich underlined the shift in musical language:

It is my deep conviction that in opera there should be singing. And all the vocal parts in Lady Macbeth are melodious, lyrical… I have arias, duets, trios, large choruses. Recitative—in its old traditional guise—is almost totally absent. I devoted great attention to achieving the singability and

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44

melodiousness of each part. My orchestra does not accompany, but plays a leading role together with the singers.

The composer reserved his most heartfelt lyricism, the music of greatest emotional richness, depth, and genuine warmth for the positive portrayal of his heroine, Katerina.

When the opera was written, between 1930 and 1932, Shostakovich was best known as a pungent musical satirist. (His tragic symphonic canvasses were all still in the future.) His compositional hallmark was the musical “grotesque.” Thus, for many critics, his moving portrayal of Katerina’s human tragedy—even etched against the satirical stylistic backdrop—represented a significant and welcome breakthrough. In the heady days of triumph between the initial productions of Lady Macbeth in January 1934 in Leningrad and Moscow and the opera’s suppression exactly two years later, Shostakovich bristled at the critics’ promotion of lyricism, sadness, and tragedy over laughter in the spectrum of human emotions, staking his claim for the role of humor in “serious” composition.

In fact, the two original productions took opposing readings of the “tragi-satirical” score. At Leningrad’s Maly Theater, Nikolai Smolich stressed the satirical aspect, while at the Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre in Moscow, director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko—who gave his production the alternative title Katerina Ismailova—pursued a more “realistic” interpretation, emphasizing the tragedy and downplaying the satire. There are indications that, of the two, Shostakovich personally favored the hometown, Leningrad production. Among other objections, he felt that in places Nemirovich-Danchenko’s motivation stemmed more from Leskov’s story than from the opera libretto. But Shostakovich was an active participant in the staging of both versions.

And they both met with phenomenal critical and popular success. Lady Macbeth generated heated debate as well—over the proper social ramifications of the drama, for instance, and the opera’s lack of a moral force for good—but it was debate animated by the underlying presumption of an operatic masterpiece. Its extraordinary success quickly attracted attention from abroad. In the first of the dozen foreign productions mounted before the opera was condemned, an all-Russian cast and chorus conducted by Artur Rodzinski performed Lady Macbeth twice in Cleveland’s Severance Hall before bringing the production to New York, where it was presented, amidst great fanfare and the frisson of political audacity, to a sold-out audience at the Met on February 5, 1935. Acknowledging the brilliance of the event, an otherwise unimpressed Olin Downes said: “On this occasion an opera with a musical score flimsily put together, full of reminiscences and obvious and shallow tricks, with almost no originality or creative quality, attached to a libretto of communistic hue, lurid, overdrawn, naive and sensational, had an immense success.” The uninhibited sexual naturalism of the opera (an aspect not embellished by either of the Russian productions) brought vehement protests from, among others, the Clean Amusement Association of America, which exacted a

“black-out” of the most explicit sex scene (Act I, Scene 3) and the expurgation

Program Note CONTINUED

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of its suggestive trombone slides when the opera played in Philadelphia in April 1935. (In a fitting reversal, the intent of the censorship was partially foiled at the first performance when the actor portraying Sergei accidentally knocked down the curtain veiling the action. The press reported that “the scene, however, proved to be mild… although the musical accompaniment grew quite ecstatic.”)

The assault on the opera came as a sudden shock. On January 28, 1936—two days after Stalin had left a performance of Lady Macbeth without remaining to the end—the official newspaper Pravda published an unsigned editorial, “Muddle Instead of Music”:

Several theaters have presented to the culturally maturing Soviet public Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District as a novelty, as an accomplishment. Fawning musical criticism extols the opera to the heavens, trumpeting its fame. Instead of practical and serious criticism that could assist him in his future work, the young composer hears only enthusiastic compliments. From the very first moment of the opera the listener is flabbergasted by the deliberately dissonant, muddled stream of sounds. Snatches of melody, embryos of a musical phrase drown, struggle free, and disappear again in the din, the grinding, the squealing. To follow this “music” is difficult, to remember it is impossible…

In the crudest of terms (“the music quacks, hoots, pants, and gasps in order to express the love scenes as naturally as possible”), the Pravda editorial censured the opera’s deliberate rejection of the principles of classical opera and of a “simple, accessible musical language.” Its flaws were equated with the petty-bourgeois formalist distortions found in the theater, literature, and other spheres and contrasted with the “genuine,” wholesome art demanded by the Soviet masses. The opera’s success with bourgeois audiences in the West was taken as proof of its alien orientation.

For all its unexpectedness, the attack on Lady Macbeth was not an isolated event. (A few days later, for example, Shostakovich was upbraided again in Pravda for quite different faults in his ballet The Bright Stream.) It was simply the most conspicuous incident, the one producing the greatest impact and resonance, in Stalin’s successful campaign to subjugate Soviet creative artists to the repressive control of Communist Party and state. Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was transformed, overnight, from a symbol of optimism about the unique creative promise of opera in the Soviet Union to the official archetype of corruption in Soviet art.

Its condemnation was devastating to Shostakovich. From a historic perspective, the most catastrophic consequence of Stalin’s meddling in aesthetics was not only that the composer abandoned his visionary quest to create a tetralogy of operas, a Russian Ring cycle, about women from different eras in the country’s history. Even more so it is the fact that, despite frequent starts, he was never able to complete another opera at all. In the post-Stalin era, Lady Macbeth—revised by the composer and renamed Katerina Ismailova—was resurrected and began to reclaim a place in the repertory of Russian opera. In 1979, the score of the original Lady Macbeth resurfaced and was published in the West. Since then, it has received numerous new productions and has completely displaced the revised version in Western opera houses.

—Laurel E. Fay

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The Cast

this season Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Met and La Traviata, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles at the Los Angeles Opera.met appearances He has conducted more than 270 performances of 22 operas here including Die Zauberflöte (debut, 1976), Susannah, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Semiramide, Tosca, La Traviata, Dialogues des Carmélites, and the world premiere of Picker’s An American Tragedy.career highlights He became Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera in 2006 and is also Music Director of the Ravinia Festival and the Cincinnati May Festival. Previously he was Principal Conductor of the Paris National Opera, General Music Director of the City of Cologne, and Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Since his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1974 he has appeared with every major North American and European orchestra and with many of the world’s major opera companies including La Scala, Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Florence’s Maggio Musicale.

this season Katerina Ismailova in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana at the Met, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier and a return to the title role of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole at Covent Garden (where she sang the world premiere in 2011), and the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos in Zurich. met appearances Sieglinde in Die Walküre (debut, 2011) and the title role of Francesca da Rimini.career highlights Minnie in La Fanciulla del West at Covent Garden and in Amsterdam and Frankfurt; Sieglinde at Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Aix-en-Provence Festival, and Bayreuth Festival; and Katerina Ismailova at Covent Garden, the Netherlands Opera, and in Madrid. Last season she sang Isolde in Tristan und Isolde in Dresden and the title role of Kát’a Kabanová at the Berlin State Opera. She has also sung Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, Giorgetta in Il Tabarro, and Dido in Les Troyens, at Covent Garden; Mme. Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites, the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Chrysothemis in Elektra at Paris’s Bastille Opera; Chrysothemis at the Salzburg Festival and in Munich; and Leonora in La Forza del Destino for her debut at the Vienna State Opera.

James Conlonconductor (new york, new york)

Eva-Maria Westbroeksoprano (the hague, the netherlands)

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this season Boris Ismailov in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Met.met appearances Ivan Khovansky in Khovanshchina (debut, 2012).career highlights Recent performances include Sobakin in The Tsar’s Bride at La Scala and Berlin’s Deutsche Staatsoper, Pimen in Boris Godunov at the Munich Festival, and the Commendatore in Don Giovanni in Madrid and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. He made his international debut as Dosifei in Khovanshchina at the Vienna State Opera in 1989 and since that time has sung the title role of Boris Godunov at the Salzburg Festival and Vienna State Opera, the title role of Falstaff and Banquo in Macbeth at Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlo and Falstaff at the Salzburg Festival, Field Marshal Kutuzov in War and Peace at the Paris Opera, Kochubey in Mazeppa at La Scala, and Dosifei at the Paris Opera, Vienna State Opera, and Brussels’s La Monnaie.

Anatoli Kotscherga bass (winnitza, ukraine)

this season Don José in Carmen and Sergei in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Met, Sam in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah at the San Francisco Opera, Walter in Weinberg’s The Passenger at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Florestan in Fidelio in Zurich, and concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, and New York Philharmonic. met appearances Don José (debut, 2010).career highlights Recent performances include the Prince in Rusalka at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the title role of Lohengrin with the San Francisco Opera, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with the Los Angeles Opera, Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut at Brussels’s La Monnaie, Sergei in Zurich, and Don José with the Los Angeles Opera, Dallas Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. He has also sung Froh in Das Rheingold and Siegmund in Die Walküre in San Francisco, Don José and the Prince at the Glyndebourne Festival, and appeared at La Scala, Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Seattle Opera, among others.

Brandon Jovanovichtenor (billings, montana)

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this season Zinovy Ismailov in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Met, Boris in Kát’a Kabanová with Boston Lyric Opera, and Canio in Pagliacci in Leipzig.met appearances Števa in Jenufa, Matteo in Arabella (debut, 2001), Cassio in Otello, Kudrjáš in Kát’a Kabanová, and Christian in Cyrano de Bergerac.career highlights Recent performances include the title role of Otello in Copenhagen, Aschenbach in Death in Venice and Captain Vere in Billy Budd at Düsseldorf’s Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Albert Gregor in The Makropulos Case at the Salzburg Festival, and Elis in Franz Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber with the Netherlands Opera. He has also sung with the Washington National Opera, Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Houston Grand Opera, and Florence’s Maggio Musicale.

Raymond Verytenor (pittsburgh, pennsylvania)

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The Cast CONTINUED

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LECTURE SERIES Opera-related courses, pre-performance lectures, master classes, and more are held throughout the Met performance season at the Opera Learning Center. For tickets and information, call 212-769-7028.

LOST AND FOUND Security office at Stage Door. Monday–Friday, 2pm–4pm; 212-799-3100, ext. 2499.

MET OPERA SHOP The Met Opera Shop is adjacent to the North Box Office, 212-580-4090. Open Monday–Saturday, 10am–final intermission; Sunday, noon–6pm.

PUBLIC TELEPHONES Telephones with volume controls and TTY Public Telephone located in Founders Hall on the Concourse level.

RESTAURANT AND REFRESHMENT FACILITIES The Grand Tier Restaurant at the Metropolitan Opera features creative contemporary American cuisine, and the Revlon Bar offers panini, crostini, and a full service bar. Both are now open two hours prior to the Metropolitan Opera curtain time to any Lincoln Center ticket holder for pre-curtain dining. Pre-ordered intermission dining is also available for Metropolitan Opera ticket holders. For reservations please call 212-799-3400.

RESTROOMS Wheelchair-accessible restrooms are located on the Dress Circle, Grand Tier, Parterre, and Founders Hall levels.

SEAT CUSHIONS Available in the South Check Room. Major credit card or driver’s license required for deposit.

SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS For information contact the Metropolitan Opera Guild Education Department, 212-769-7022.

SCORE-DESK TICKET PROGRAM Tickets for score desk seats in the Family Circle boxes may be purchased by calling the Metropolitan Opera Guild at 212-769-7028. These no-view seats provide an affordable way for music students to study an opera’s score during a live performance.

TOUR GUIDE SERVICE Backstage tours of the Opera House are held during the Met performance season on most weekdays at 3:15pm, and on select Sundays at 10:30am and/or 1:30pm. For tickets and information, call 212-769-7028. Tours of Lincoln Center daily; call 212-875-5351 for availability.

WEBSITE www.metopera.org

WHEELCHAIR ACCOMMODATIONS Telephone 212-799-3100, ext. 2204. Wheelchair entrance at Concourse level.

The exits indicated by a red light and the sign nearest the seat you occupy are the shortest routes to the street. In the event of fire or other emergency, please do not run—walk to that exit.

In compliance with New York City Department of Health regulations, smoking is prohibited in all areas of this theater.

Patrons are reminded that in deference to the performing artists and the seated audience, those who leave the auditorium during the performance will not be readmitted while the performance is in progress.

The photographing or sound recording of any performance, or the possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording inside this theater, without the written permission of the management, is prohibited by law. Offenders may be ejected and liable for damages and other lawful remedies.

Use of cellular telephones and electronic devices for any purpose, including email and texting, is prohibited in the auditorium at all times. Please be sure to turn off all devices before entering the auditorium.

Facilities and Services