The Met’s 2013-14 Season Will Feature 26 Operas With Six New Productions, Including a U.S. Premiere

Music Director James Levine returns to the Met podium to conduct a new staging of Falstaff, directed by Robert Carsen, and revivals of Così fan tutte and Wozzeck

Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, a Met commission, will have its American premiereconducted by David Robertson and directed by Bartlett Sher

Major directors make Met debuts: Deborah Warner’s new production of the Opening Night’s Eugene Onegin, staged by Fiona Shaw; Jeremy Sams with a new

English-language version of Die Fledermaus, and Dmitri Tcherniakov with Borodin’s Prince Igor;

Richard Eyre returns to the Met to direct a new production of Massenet’s Werther

The eighth season of The Met: Live in HD series will feature 10 live transmissions,beginning October 5 with Eugene Onegin

New York, NY (February 26, 2013, update September 30)—The Metropolitan

Opera’s 2013-14 season will feature many of the world’s greatest singers, conductors, and

theater artists in 26 operas, including six new productions, of a varied repertory that ranges

from the Baroque era to the 21st century. Met Music Director James Levine will return to

the Met podium for the first time in two years, conducting three operas with which he has

long been associated: a new production of Verdi’s final masterpiece Falstaff, Mozart’s

Così fan tutte, and Berg’s Wozzeck. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will be

conducting two operas in the 2013-14 season, Rossini’s La Cenerentola and Puccini’s

Madama Butterfly.

Ten of the new season’s more than 200 performances will be transmitted live

around the world as part of the popular Met: Live in HD series of movie theater simulcasts,

offering a significant portion of the Met season to opera lovers in 64 countries. (A separate

release, focused on the HD transmissions, is also available.)

The six new productions will include three debuts by directors new to the Met:

Fiona Shaw staging Deborah Warner’s production of a new Eugene Onegin on opening

night, September 23, starring Anna Netrebko, Mariusz Kwiecien, and Piotr Beczala and

conducted by Valery Gergiev; Jeremy Sams, whose staging of Die Fledermaus will open

on New Year’s Eve, conducted by Adam Fischer and featuring new dialogue by

playwright Douglas Carter Beane; and Dmitri Tcherniakov, with Borodin’s Prince Igor

on February 6, 2014, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and starring Ildar Abdrazakov

in the title role. Nico Muhly’s opera Two Boys, a Met commission, will have its American

premiere October 21 in a production conducted by David Robertson and directed by

Bartlett Sher. Robert Carsen returns to the Met with a new Falstaff, opening December

6, and Richard Eyre stages the final new production of the season, Massenet’s Werther,

starring Jonas Kaufmann and Sophie Koch, opening February 18.

The repertory productions for the season will include a mix of rarely performed

works and longtime audience favorites, both featuring some of the world’s greatest stars.

The 2013-14 repertory operas include Richard Strauss’s Arabella, Die Frau ohne Schatten,

and Der Rosenkavalier (with Garanča in her first Met performances of Octavian). Five bel

canto operas are part of the season, including Bellini’s I Puritani, Norma (with Sondra

Radvanovsky), and La Sonnambula (with Diana Damrau); Fabio Luisi leads Rossini’s

La Cenerentola, with Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez; and Anna Netrebko

reprises her Adina opposite Ramón Vargas as Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.

Three of Puccini’s most-performed works are part of the season: casts led by Joseph

Calleja and Vittorio Grigolo star in La Bohème; Patricia Racette and Radvanovsky take

the title role of Tosca; and Madama Butterfly returns, with rotating casts including

Kristine Opolais in her Met role debut as Cio-Cio-San. Mozart is represented in the

season with both Così fan tutte and a holiday presentation of The Magic Flute. Renée

Fleming returns to the title role in Dvořák’s Rusalka, conducted by Yannick Nézet-

Séguin. Racette and Marcelo Álvarez star in Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. The season

features the first Met revivals of The Enchanted Island (with Susan Graham and Plácido

Domingo) and the William Kentridge production of Shostakovich’s The Nose (conducted

by Gergiev), as well as the return of Michael Mayer’s new production of Verdi’s

Rigoletto, starring Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the title role. Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s

Dream returns to commemorate the composer’s centennial in a revival conducted by

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James Conlon, and Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson make Met role debuts in

another twentieth-century masterpiece, Berg’s Wozzeck.

The 2013-14 season was announced by Met General Manager Peter Gelb and Met

Music Director James Levine. “With this new season, we continue our mission for the Met

as a center of musical and theatrical creativity, hopefully stimulating our veteran audience,

while also capturing the imagination of the next generation,” Gelb said.

“I am delighted to be back with the great Met company, conducting three operas I

love with our incomparable orchestra and chorus,” said Levine.

New Productions

Eugene Onegin – Peter Ilyich TchaikovskyPremiere: September 23, 2013Conductor: Valery Gergiev/Pavel Smelkov/Alexander VedernikovProduction: Deborah Warner, staged by Fiona ShawLive in HD: October 5, 2013

The season opens on September 23 with a new production of Tchaikovsky’s

romantic tragedy Eugene Onegin. Valery Gergiev returns to the Met to conduct the

opening performances of Deborah Warner’ production, staged by acclaimed English

actress Fiona Shaw, both in their Met debuts. Mariusz Kwiecien sings his first Met

performances as the imperious title character, a much-admired interpretation he has sung in

many of the world’s leading opera houses, opposite Anna Netrebko as Tatiana, in her

third consecutive Met opening night and her first company performances as the naïve

heroine from Pushkin’s classic novel. Piotr Beczala reprises his performance as Onegin’s

friend turned rival, Lenski. A second cast, conducted by Alexander Vedernikov in his

Met debut, features Peter Mattei as Onegin, Marina Poplavskaya as Tatiana, and, in his

first Met performances since the 2008-09 season, Rolando Villazón as Lenski; all three

singers will be making their company role debuts. Reviewing Warner’s production when it

premiered at English National Opera, the Sunday Telegraph praised its “mixture of

haunting visual and emotional impact: cutting straight to the heart of the work, [Warner]

shows how Onegin is simultaneously about two colliding Russian societies—rustic

provincialism and cosmopolitan decadence—and three wasted lives.”

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Two Boys – Nico Muhly U.S. PremierePremiere: October 21, 2013Libretto: Craig Lucas Conductor: David RobertsonProduction: Bartlett Sher

"A work of dark beauty...a landmark in the career of an important artist" (The New

York Times)," Two Boys marked the "auspicious operatic debut" (London Independent) of

American composer Nico Muhly, who was 29 when the Met commission premiered in

London in the fall of 2011. With a libretto by celebrated playwright Craig Lucas, Two

Boys explores the shadowy world of the internet as a detective (Alice Coote) takes on what

initially seems to be to be a straightforward case—the stabbing of one teenage boy by

another—and discovers a tangled web of online intrigue. Paul Appleby co-stars as Brian

in this striking new work, staged by Bartlett Sher. Although young, Muhly is a prolific

composer, having already written acclaimed compositions for major orchestras, choruses,

dance companies, chamber ensembles, and the opera Dark Sisters, as well as film scores

and pop songs.

Falstaff - Giuseppe VerdiPremiere: December 6, 2013Conductor: James LevineProduction: Robert Carsen Live in HD: December 14, 2013

Verdi’s brilliant final masterpiece Falstaff has its first new Met production in

nearly 50 years, conducted by James Levine and directed by Robert Carsen. Ambrogio

Maestri and Nicola Alaimo take on the iconic basso buffo role of Sir John Falstaff, the

boorish, blustery character originally seen in Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Merry Wives of

Windsor. Angela Meade sings Alice Ford, one of many objects of Falstaff’s affection, and

Stephanie Blythe is the sharp-tongued Mistress Quickly in a cast that also includes Lisette

Oropesa as Nannetta, Jennifer Johnson Cano as Meg Page, Paolo Fanale in his Met

debut as Fenton, and Franco Vassallo as Ford. The International Herald Tribune praised

Carsen’s staging, first seen at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, as a “production of eye-

catching ingenuity.”

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Die Fledermaus – Johann Strauss, Jr.Premiere: December 31, 2013Conductor: Adam FischerProduction: Jeremy SamsLyrics by: Jeremy SamsDialogue by: Douglas Carter Beane

A new production of Johann Strauss’s sparkling comedy Die Fledermaus premieres

on New Year’s Eve. Adam Fischer conducts the new staging by Jeremy Sams, which

sets the farcical story of romantic intrigue and mistaken identity in Vienna at the turn of the

twentieth century. The new production of the quintessential Viennese comedy will feature

new English-language lyrics by Sams and dialogue by award-winning Broadway

playwright Douglas Carter Beane. Susanna Phillips sings Rosalinde, with Christopher

Maltman as her husband, Eisenstein; Christine Schäfer and Jane Archibald as her

clever maid, Adele; Michael Fabiano as Alfred, her clandestine lover; Paulo Szot as the

scheming notary Dr. Falke, Patrick Carfizzi as the warden Frank; and Anthony Roth

Costanzo as the consummate party host, Prince Orlofsky. Broadway actor Danny

Burstein makes his Metropolitan Opera debut in the non-singing role of Frosch, the jailer.

Prince Igor - Alexander BorodinPremiere: February 6, 2014Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda/Pavel SmelkovProduction: Dmitri TcherniakovLive in HD: March 1, 2014

Alexander Borodin’s epic Prince Igor has its first Met performances since 1917 in

a new production staged by noted Russian opera director Dmitri Tcherniakov in his Met

debut. Gianandrea Noseda and Pavel Smelkov conduct the lush score, famous for its

celebrated “Polovtsian Dances.” Ildar Abdrazakov sings the title role, a Russian hero

whose military maneuvers are complicated by romantic intrigue, political rivalries, and

familial disputes. The cast also includes Oksana Dyka in her Met debut as Yaroslavna,

Igor’s emotionally vulnerable second wife; Anita Rachvelishvili as the fiery Polovtsian

princess Konchakovna; Sergey Semishkur in his Met debut as Vladimir Igorevich, Igor’s

son and Konchakovna’s lover; Mikhail Petrenko as Prince Galitsky, Yaroslavna’s

brother; and Štefan Kocán as the warlord Khan Konchak. Left unfinished at the

composer’s death, Prince Igor does not have a definitive performing version. Noseda and

Tcherniakov have constructed a new version using recent research that incorporates all the

known music and orchestration by Borodin, changes the order of some scenes, and 5

includes three pieces of newly orchestrated material by Pavel Smelkov, the Russian

composer and conductor who also leads the February 21 performance.

Werther – Jules MassenetPremiere: February 18, 2014Conductor: Alain AltinogluProduction: Richard EyreLive in HD: March 15, 2014

Director Richard Eyre, whose hit staging of Carmen premiered at the Met in 2009,

returns with a new production of Massenet’s Werther, starring Jonas Kaufmann and

Sophie Koch in their first Met performances as the brooding poet Werther and his

unattainable love, Charlotte. Lisette Oropesa sings the role of Sophie, Charlotte’s sister;

David Bižić makes his Met debut as Charlotte’s fiancé, Albert; and Jonathan Summers is

Charlotte’s father, Le Bailli. Alain Altinoglu conducts the first new Met production of the

opera in more than 40 years.

Casting News

Major Met Debuts

Notable Met debuts this season, in chronological order, include American

baritone Christopher Bolduc as Jake in Two Boys (October 21); German soprano Anne

Schwanewilms as the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten (November 7); Spanish

conductor Pablo Heras-Casado leading Rigoletto (November 11); Moldovan

soprano Irina Lungu as Gilda in Rigoletto (November 11); Bulgarian soprano Sonya

Yoncheva as Gilda in Rigoletto (November 21); Russian conductor Alexander

Vedernikov leading Eugene Onegin (November 23); Russian mezzo-soprano Elena

Maximova as Olga in Eugene Onegin (November 23); German mezzo-soprano Daniela

Sindram as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier(December 3); Italian tenor Paolo Fanale as

Fenton in Falstaff (December 6); British conductor Jane Glover leading The Magic

Flute (December 16); American soprano Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night in The

Magic Flute (December 28); American actor Danny Burstein as Frosch in Die

Fledermaus (December 31); South African soprano Amanda Echalaz as Cio-Cio-San

in Madama Butterfly (January 16); American baritone Scott Hendricks as Sharpless

inMadama Butterfly (January 16); American soprano Emily Magee as the Foreign

Princess in Rusalka (January 23); Ukrainian soprano Oksana Dyka as Yaroslavna

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in Prince Igor(February 6); Russian tenor Sergey Semishkur as Vladimir Igorevich

in Prince Igor (February 6); French mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch as Charlotte in Werther

(February 18); Serbian bass-baritone David Bižić as Albert in Werther (February 18);

Canadian soprano Andriana Chuchman as Miranda in The Enchanted Island (February

26); English bass Clive Bayley as the Doctor in Wozzeck (March 6); Romanian

soprano Anita Hartig as Mimì in La Bohème (March 19); American soprano Jennifer

Rowley as Musetta in La Bohème (March 19); French bass-baritone Nicolas Testé as

Colline in La Bohème (March 19); German tenor Roberto Saccà as Matteo

in Arabella (April 3); German baritone Michael Volle as Mandryka in Arabella (April 3);

Austrian bass-baritone Martin Winkler as Waldner (April 3); Russian soprano Olga

Peretyatko as Elvira in I Puritani (April 17); and Italian baritone Pietro Spagnoli as

Dandini in La Cenerentola (April 21).

Repertory

The Met’s 2013-14 season will feature 20 revivals of a varied repertory, ranging

from rarely performed works to perennial audience favorites.

To commemorate Benjamin Britten’s centennial, the Met will present a revival of

his A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which had its Met premiere in 1996. James Conlon

conducts an ensemble that includes Iestyn Davies and Kathleen Kim as Oberon and

Tytania, king and queen of the fairies; Erin Wall (Helena), Elizabeth DeShong (Hermia),

Joseph Kaiser (Lysander), and Michael Todd Simpson (Demetrius) as the quartet of

mismatched lovers; and Matthew Rose as the weaver-turned-amateur-actor Bottom.

Dvořák’s Rusalka, a lushly romantic adaptation of the Czech folk tales Hans

Christian Andersen used as the basis for The Little Mermaid, returns to the Met in January

2014. The opera had its Met premiere in 1993 and the central character of the water spirit

who falls in love with a human prince is a touchstone role for Renée Fleming. This season,

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a cast led by Fleming and including Piotr Beczala as the

Prince, Emily Magee in her Met debut as the Foreign Princess, John Relyea as the Water

Sprite, and Dolora Zajick as the witch Ježibaba.

Andrea Chénier, Giordano’s tale of heroism and sacrifice during the French

Revolution, returns to the repertory with Gianandrea Noseda conducting and Marcelo

Álvarez taking the title part for the first time with the company. Also making Met role

debuts are Patricia Racette as Maddalena, the young aristocrat who loses everything but

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her love for Chénier, and Željko Lučić as Gérard, the household servant who rises to

become a revolutionary leader.

Berg’s Wozzeck returns this season conducted by James Levine, who has led more

than 40 performances of the opera since 1974. Two major Met stars make company role

debuts in the central roles: Thomas Hampson sings the title role, a soldier so abused by

society that he turns to murder, and Deborah Voigt is his unfaithful lover and victim,

Marie.

Two Mozart operas are part of the repertory this season. Maestro Levine conducts

Così fan tutte, with Susanna Phillips and Guanqun Yu as the conflicted Fiordiligi; Isabel

Leonard as her sister, Dorabella; Danielle de Niese as their feisty maid, Despina; Matthew

Polenzani and Rodion Pogossov as the sisters’ fiancés, Ferrando and Guglielmo; and

Maurizio Muraro as the cynical Don Alfonso.

Conductor Jane Glover makes her Met debut leading the abridged, English-

language holiday presentation of The Magic Flute. Julie Taymor’s hit production will

feature family-friendly ticket prices and weekday matinee performances designed to appeal

to audiences of all ages. The cast includes Alek Shrader in his first Met performances as

the hero Tamino; Nathan Gunn in one of his most acclaimed roles as the bird-catcher

Papageno; Eric Owens as the high priest Sarastro; Heidi Stober as the princess Pamina;

and Albina Shagimuratova and Kathryn Lewek alternating in the role of the wicked Queen

of the Night.

Three Bellini operas will be part of the Met season. Norma returns to the repertory,

with Sondra Radvanovsky and Angela Meade taking on the challenging central role of a

vengeful Druid priestess for the first time at the Met. Riccardo Frizza conducts the opera,

with Kate Aldrich and Jamie Barton as Adalgisa; Aleksandrs Antonenko in his Met role

debut as Pollione, Norma’s unfaithful husband; and James Morris as the Druid chieftain

Oroveso, Norma’s father.

La Sonnambula returns to the Met in March, with Diana Damrau singing her first

company performances of the sleepwalking heroine Amina. Javier Camarena is Elvino,

Amina’s betrothed, and Michele Pertusi is Rodolfo in the first revival of Mary

Zimmerman’s 2009 production. Marco Armiliato conducts.

The third Bellini opera in this season, I Puritani, features Russian soprano Olga

Peretyatko in her Met debut as the heroine Elvira. The opera, led by rising Italian

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conductor Michele Mariotti, will also feature Lawrence Brownlee in his Met role debut as

Arturo, Mariusz Kwiecien as Riccardo, and Michele Pertusi as Giorgio.

Three Richard Strauss works return to the Met stage this season. Vladimir Jurowski

conducts Die Frau ohne Schatten in Herbert Wernicke’s haunting production, last seen at

the Met in 2003. Anne Schwanewilms makes her Met debut as the ethereal Empress, with

Torsten Kerl as the Emperor; Ildikó Komlósi as the Empress’s devoted Nurse; Johan

Reuter as the poor dyer, Barak; and Christine Goerke as the Dyer’s Wife, a peasant woman

who is willing to give up her shadow.

Der Rosenkavalier returns to the repertory in a series of performances marking the

100th anniversary of the work’s New York premiere. Alice Coote sings her first Met

performances of the impetuous Octavian, opposite Viennese soprano Martina Serafin as

Octavian’s older lover, the Marschallin. Mojca Erdmann sings Sophie, and Peter Rose is

the Marschallin’s bumbling cousin, Baron Ochs. Edward Gardner conducts his first

company performances of Strauss’s beloved and bittersweet comedy.

Strauss’s lively romance Arabella returns to the repertory in April, with Philippe

Auguin conducting and rising Swedish soprano Malin Byström in the title role. Genia

Kühmeier sings Arabella’s sister, Zdenka; the ensemble cast also features Roberto Saccà,

Michael Volle, and Martin Winkler in their respective Met debuts as Matteo, Mandryka,

and Waldner.

Three of Puccini’s most popular works will be performed this season, with exciting

new stars and acclaimed Met favorites in the central roles. Patricia Racette and Sondra

Radvanovsky sing the temperamental title diva in Tosca, with Roberto Alagna and

Marcello Giordani as Cavaradossi. George Gagnidze reprises his performance as the

wicked Scarpia in all performances this season, which will be conducted by Riccardo

Frizza and Marco Armiliato.

La Bohème returns to the repertory, with Stefano Ranzani leading 14 performances

of the most-performed opera in Met history. Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production will star

Maija Kovalevska, debuting Romanian soprano Anita Hartig, and Barbara Frittoli as the

consumptive Mimì; Joseph Calleja and Vittorio Grigolo as her star-crossed lover, Rodolfo;

Irina Lungu, Susanna Phillips, and debuting soprano Jennifer Rowley as the coquettish

Musetta; and Alexey Markov and Massimo Cavalletti as the painter Marcello.

Anthony Minghella’s production of Madama Butterfly will star South African

soprano Amanda Echalaz in her Met debut as Cio-Cio-San. Kristine Opolais, who made a

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highly acclaimed Met debut as Magda in La Rondine in the 2012-13 season, returns for her

first company performances as Cio-Cio-San, and Chinese soprano Hui He takes the role

later in the season. Bryan Hymel, Adam Diegel, James Valenti, and Gwyn Hughes Jones

sing Pinkerton, the caddish American who crushes Cio-Cio-San’s dreams. This season’s

performances will be conducted by Philippe Auguin, Marco Armiliato, and Fabio Luisi.

Principal Conductor Luisi will also lead a star-studded revival of Rossini’s La

Cenerentola, starring Joyce DiDonato in her first Met performances of the title role. Bel

canto star Juan Diego Flórez joins her as the dashing Don Ramiro; Pietro Spagnoli makes

his Met debut as Dandini; Alessandro Corbelli sings Don Magnifico; and Luca Pisaroni is

Alidoro.

Four acclaimed new productions from recent seasons re-enter the repertory.

William Kentridge’s innovative production of Shostakovich’s The Nose returns in

September, with Valery Gergiev leading a cast that includes Paulo Szot as the hapless

Kovalyov, Andrey Popov as the Police Inspector, and Alexander Lewis as Kovalyov’s

runaway nose.

Michael Mayer’s colorful, updated production of Verdi’s Rigoletto returns in

November, with Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing his first Met performances of the title role.

Debuting sopranos Irina Lungu and Sonya Yoncheva share the role of Gilda and Matthew

Polenzani makes his company role debut as the womanizing Duke. Spanish conductor

Pablo Heras-Casado makes his Met debut.

Anna Netrebko reprises her Adina in Bartlett Sher’s production of Donizetti’s

L’Elisir d’Amore, which opened the Met’s 2012-13 season. Maurizio Benini returns to

conduct a cast that features Ramón Vargas as Nemorino, the peasant who is infatuated with

Adina; Nicola Alaimo as the arrogant Sergeant Belcore; and Erwin Schrott as the purveyor

of magic potions, Dr. Dulcamara.

Patrick Summers conducts the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island, which

premiered at the Met in the 2011-12 season to critical and public acclaim. Susan Graham

stars in the central role of the witch Sycorax, opposite David Daniels as Prospero, Danielle

de Niese as Ariel, Andriana Chuchman in her Met debut as Miranda, Anthony Roth

Costanzo as Ferdinand, Luca Pisaroni as Caliban, and the legendary Plácido Domingo as

Neptune, king of the seas.

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Vittorio Grigolo Recital

Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo will give a solo recital on the Met stage on Sunday,

March 9 at 4 p.m. Grigolo and pianist Vincenzo Scalera will perform songs by Bellini,

Rossini, Tosti, Gastaldon, Leoncavallo, De Curtis, and D’Annibale and arias from

Donizetti’s Il Duca d’Alba and Verdi’s Il Corsaro.

The MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

The MET Orchestra continues its highly acclaimed annual series at Carnegie Hall

with three Sunday afternoon concerts conducted by James Levine. The program for the

October 13 concert includes the overture from Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani; Elliott Carter’s

“Variations for Orchestra”; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92; and mezzo-

soprano Joyce DiDonato in selections from Rossini’s Giovanna d’Arco and Mozart’s La

Clemenza di Tito.

On December 22, Levine conducts an all-Mahler program. Baritone Peter Mattei

will sing the composer’s first song cycle, “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a

Wayfarer)” and the orchestra will conclude the program with Mahler’s Symphony No. 7.

The final concert of the season, on May 11, is an all-Dvořák program. Levine will

conduct the orchestra in the composer’s Carnival Overture, Op. 92, B. 169; Symphony No.

7 in D minor, Op. 70, B. 14; and Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B. 191, featuring

soloist Lynn Harrell.

The Met: Live in HD 2013-14

The 2013-14 season of The Met: Live in HD will feature 10 international movie

theater transmissions of selected Saturday matinees. The HD season opens on October 5

with Eugene Onegin and continues with The Nose (October 26), Tosca (November 9),

Falstaff (December 14), Rusalka (February 8), Prince Igor (March 1), Werther (March

15), La Bohème (April 5), Così fan tutte (April 26), and La Cenerentola (May 10).

The enormously successful Peabody and Emmy Award-winning series of live

transmissions into movie theaters, which enters its eighth season in 2013-14, currently

reaches more than 1,900 theaters in 64 countries. The Met launched its groundbreaking

series in 2006 and quickly became the world’s leading alternative cinema content provider.

More than 12 million tickets have been sold since the series’ inception.

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Tickets for the 10 transmissions in the 2013-14 Live in HD season will go on sale

in August in the U.S. and Canada, with Met Members offered priority before tickets are

made available to the general public. International ticket sales dates and details on ordering

tickets for the 2013-14 Live in HD series vary from country to country and will be

announced separately by individual distributors.

The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant from its founding

sponsor, The Neubauer Family Foundation. Global corporate sponsorship of The Met: Live

in HD is provided by Bloomberg. Transmission of The Met: Live in HD in Canada is made

possible thanks to the generosity of Jacqueline and Paul G. Desmarais Sr.

Within months of their initial live transmissions, the Live in HD programs are

shown on PBS. The PBS series, Great Performances at the Met, is produced in association

with PBS and WNET, with support from Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®.

Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Ticket Prices, Subscription Changes, and Accessibility Programs

The Met’s efforts to increase the accessibility of opera will continue in the new

season, with more reduced ticket prices and enhanced subscriber benefits. In addition,

three popular programs designed to increase audience access to Met performances will

return in 2013-14.

The Met will decrease some ticket prices for next season. More than 2,000 seats for

each performance will be available for lower prices than in the current season. Prices in

many sections of the auditorium, particularly the orchestra and grand tier levels, will be

lowered next season, causing the average price of a Met ticket to decrease from $174 to

$156.

In addition, the Met is enhancing the benefits of subscribing. Subscription tickets

will be priced at a significant discount, with a minimum discount of 15% versus single-sale

prices for evening subscriptions, and a minimum discount of 10% for Saturday matinee

subscriptions. New subscriber benefits include a modified exchange policy that eliminates

exchange fees and allows the exchange of subscription tickets for any available

performance with the exception of Opening Night and the New Year’s Eve Gala. Also, the

Met has created a new subscriber-only hotline designed to give Met subscribers priority

service for all their ticket purchases, including additional single-sale tickets.

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In keeping with a tradition begun on Opening Night in 2006, the September 23

premiere performance of Eugene Onegin will be transmitted live to numerous large screens

in Times Square and on Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza. Attendance will be free at

both locations; information on ticket distribution will be released at a later date. The Times

Square relay of the Opening Night Gala is presented in cooperation with the City of New

York and the Times Square Alliance. 

The live opening relay is made possible through funding from Bloomberg. This

program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of

Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

The Met’s Rush Tickets program will return for its eighth season in 2013-14, once

again making low-priced tickets in prime seating locations available for every

performance.

The Met will continue its popular Open Rehearsal program, launched in 2006,

which provides free dress rehearsal tickets to both students and members of the general

public. The Open Rehearsals for the 2013-14 season will be announced at a later date.

New CD, DVD, and digital releases

The Met will commemorate the bicentennials of Verdi and Wagner with two

exclusive box sets of historic Met performances, released by Sony Classical. Each set will

feature legendary performances from the Met’s archives, most never before officially

released and all newly restored and mastered from the original sources. Wagner at the Met,

a 25-CD set, will be released in April 2013 and feature Götterdämmerung starring Lauritz

Melchior and Marjorie Lawrence (1936); Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad in Die Walküre

(1940), Siegfried (1937), and Tristan und Isolde (1938); Lohengrin with Melchior and

Astrid Varnay (1943); Der Fliegende Holländer with Hans Hotter and Varnay (1950);

Das Rheingold with Hotter (1951); Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with Paul Schöffler

and Victoria de los Angeles (1953); and Tannhäuser with Ramón Vinay, Margaret

Harshaw, Varnay, George London, and Jerome Hines (1954). Conductors featured in the

set include Artur Bodanzky, Erich Leinsdorf, Fritz Reiner, Fritz Stiedry, and George Szell.

This fall, Sony Classical will release Verdi at the Met, a 20-CD set of 10 previously

unreleased and newly restored Verdi operas. This set will include Zinka Milanov and Jussi

Björling in Un Ballo in Maschera (1940); Björling, Bidú Sayão, and Leonard Warren in

Rigoletto (1945); Fritz Reiner conducting Warren in the title role of Falstaff (1949);

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Warren, Astrid Varnay, and Richard Tucker in Simon Boccanegra (1950); Milanov,

Tucker, and Warren in La Forza del Destino (1952); Renata Tebaldi in La Traviata (1957);

Mario Del Monaco, Victoria de los Angeles, and Warren in Otello (1958); Erich Leinsdorf

conducting Leonie Rysanek and Warren in Macbeth (1959); Rysanek and Cornell MacNeil

in Nabucco (1960); and Leontyne Price, Grace Bumbry, Carlo Bergonzi, and Robert

Merrill in Aida (1967).

In addition to these audio releases, the Met will continue to release past broadcasts

from the Live in HD series on DVD and Blu-Ray. The Met will also continue to make

audio and video content available through iTunes in the coming season.

The Met on the Radio and the Web

The Met’s 83rd consecutive Saturday Matinee Radio Broadcast season kicks off on

December 7 with a live broadcast of Rigoletto and continues through the May 10 matinee

of La Cenerentola. The broadcast season will once again be heard live over the Toll

Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network. Margaret Juntwait returns for

her tenth season as host and Ira Siff returns for his seventh season as commentator for the

broadcasts, which feature a range of dynamic intermission features, live backstage

interviews with artists, and the ever-popular Opera Quiz. The 2013-14 Metropolitan Opera

Saturday matinee radio broadcast season will be sponsored by Toll Brothers, America’s

luxury homebuilder®, with generous long-term support from The Annenberg Foundation,

The Neubauer Family Foundation, and the Vincent A. Stabile Endowment for Broadcast

Media, and through contributions from listeners worldwide.

Metropolitan Opera Radio on SiriusXM Channel 74 will present its eighth season

as the country’s premier subscription radio channel dedicated to opera. Up to three live

performances will be broadcast each week during the season, beginning with the Met’s

Opening Night performance of Eugene Onegin on September 23, in addition to historic

broadcasts from the Met’s vast collection. Metropolitan Opera Radio on SiriusXM is

available to subscribers in the United States and Canada.

The Met will continue to stream one live performance per week during the 2013-14

season on its website at metopera.org. The Met website also features artist interviews,

video and audio clips, photo galleries, and other information about Met productions and

initiatives.

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The Metropolitan Opera/Lincoln Center Theater “Opera/Music Theater

Commissions” Program

The Met/LCT Opera/Music Theater Commissions program continues in 2013-14

with two works in development and the Met premiere of the first work to be produced

from this program, Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, set to a libretto by Craig Lucas. Two Boys,

commissioned by the Met after being developed through workshops as part of the

Met/Lincoln Center Opera/Music Theater Commissions program, received its world

premiere at the London Coliseum in June 2011 in a co-production between the Met and

English National Opera, directed by Bartlett Sher. Following those performances, the

creative team has been working on further revisions in preparation for the Met premiere of

Two Boys on October 21, 2013.

A workshop for Scott Wheeler’s The Sorrows of Frederick (with a libretto by

Romulus Linney) takes place at the end 2012-13 season, and two additional promising

projects are currently being written in preparation for workshop productions.     

Composer Ricky Ian Gordon is working on Intimate Apparel, with Lynn Nottage

adapting her acclaimed play about an African-American seamstress in turn of the century

New York. The play follows her pursuit of a better life, through a letter-writing

relationship with a laborer working on the Panama Canal, and through her interactions

with a cross section of New York City.

Composer Jeanine Tesori and playwright Tony Kushner are collaborating on a

project that will expand upon their one-act opera A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck, which

premiered at Glimmerglass Opera in August 2011. The one-act version dealt with the fight

between an ailing Eugene O’Neill and his wife, Carlotta, during a raging snowstorm.

Tesori and Kushner will expand this story to encompass more elements of the couple’s

tempestuous relationship during the last years of O’Neill’s life, as he faced the realization

that he could not complete his final masterpieces.

The Met/LCT Opera/Music Theater Commissions program is funded by a generous

gift to the Met from the Francis Goelet Charitable Trusts.

Educational and Audience Development Initiatives

The Met’s HD Live in Schools program will continue for its seventh season,

offering free opera transmissions to New York City schools in partnership with the New

York City Department of Education. The program now enters its sixth season nationally,

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partnering with 32 school districts across the country to bring the Met’s live HD

transmissions to students and teachers. The Met’s HD education program includes

backstage visits for students, where they learn how costumes and scenery are constructed;

Q&As with artists; access to final dress rehearsals; in-school workshops; and teacher

training workshops. Program and curriculum guides are created for in-school use in

conjunction with HD screenings. Major funding for HD Live in Schools is made possible

by Bank of America, with program support provided through a partnership with the New

York City Department of Education.

Met Opera Students, the Met’s popular initiative for full-time college and graduate

students, will return in 2013-14. The program offers students access to steeply discounted

tickets, invitations to artist lectures, discounts at the Met Opera Shop, and the opportunity

to mingle with other young opera lovers at special pre-performance events.

The MetTalks series of panel discussions with the stars and creative teams of new

productions will return for a fourth season in 2013-14.

The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met

During the 2013-14 season, the contemporary art space located in the Met’s south

lobby will present two new exhibitions. The gallery will open for the season in late

September with an exhibition presented in conjunction with Nico Muhly’s Two Boys. In

early 2014, a Prince Igor-themed show will open in the space; artists for both shows will

be announced at a later date. Admission is free and Gallery Met is open to the public six

days a week; the hours are Monday through Friday from 6 p.m. through the last

intermission, and Saturdays from noon through the last intermission of the evening

performance. For more information, visit metopera.org/gallerymet.

# # #

Contact: Peter Clark/Sam NeumanMetropolitan Opera(212) 870-7457pclark@metopera.org / sneuman@metopera.org

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