T he first of our annual New York Tours will markthe ‘Opening of the Season’, with two spectacularVerdi operas at the MET, one of the fall’s first sub-scription concerts by the New York Philharmonic,and Gershwin’s iconic An American in Paris on

Broadway.

First will be the MET’s exciting new production of Verdi’sOtello, featuring the same cast announced for the sea-son’s Opening Night – Aleksandrs Antonenko, SonyaYoncheva and Zeljko Lucic. Also at the MET will beVerdi’s Il Trovatore, boasting the Russian diva AnnaNetrebko in her newest challenging portrayal. Ourthird performance will offer the New York Philharmonic underMusic Director Alan Gilbert in a popular program of Beet hoven’sSymphony No. 7 and Brahms’s PianoConcerto No. 2 with Emanuel Ax asthe soloist. Finally, we are fortunate toinclude An American in Paris, Broad-way’s newest smash musical, in the rap-turously reviewed production from theThéâtre du Châtelet.

Our fall holiday in late October willbegin with the Boston Symphony Or-chestra at Carnegie Hall in a concertperformance of Richard Strauss’sElektra, showcasing the American so-prano Christine Goerke in her as-sumption of the title role. Our two

operas at the MET will be the dazzling Franco Zeffirelliproduction of Puccini’s Turandot, with Lise Lindstromascending the vocal heights of the title role; and the ro-mantic Otto Schenk/ Schneider-Siemsen staging of Wag-ner’s Tann häuser, with Johan Botha and Eva-MariaWestbroek heading the international cast. Our fourthperformance will again be a New York Philharmonicconcert, led by guest conductor Semyon Bychkov in anall-Brahms program.

Accommodations for both holidays will be for fournights at the private New York Athletic Club (NYAC),beautifully located on Central Park South (59th street at

7th Avenue). The NYAC offers extremely pleasant bedrooms andmany advantages of a large, private club: a spacious dining room

overlooking Central Park from the 11thfloor; friendly bars on the main floorand in the second-floor Tap Roomwhich serves convenient meals; thebest-equipped large swimming-pooland sauna/steam room complex in thecity; extensive health-club features andexercise equipment; and a relaxing li-brary with a wide collection of booksand current journals. There are severalappealing cafés and restaurants in theimmediate neighborhood, and Carn -egie Hall is only one block away fromthe 58th street rear entrance.

TWO NEW YORK HOLIDAYSI. Monday, September 28th through Thursday, October 1stII. Wednesday, October 21st through Saturday, October 24th

Marty Sohl/M

etropolitan Opera

Marcelo Alvarez

Lise Lindstrom

Turandot, Act III, scene 2 at the MET

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Metropolitan Opera House and Avery Fisher Hall

A cocktail buffet or dinner will be enjoyed on the first eveningof each weekend, which will provide an opportunityto meet other members of the Tour. On our lastevening, dinnerwill be arranged in one of the inter-esting restaurants in the Lincoln Center or CarnegieHall area.

We are pleased to offer you a Guest Pass to the Met-ropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue at 82ndStreet. Your pass will allow for free entry at yourown convenience into the extensive permanent gal-leries and all exhibitions not requiring a reservedticket.

Transfers are included for all of our performances not at CarnegieHall. (The Club is only one block of easy walking distance fromCarnegie Hall.)

All MET Opera performances are now performed with MET TI-TLES optionally displayed on the seat in front of you, which hasproven to be enormously popular.

I. NEW YORK: THE NEW SEASONSEPTEMBER 28TH – OCTOBER 1ST

Our ‘New Season’ program will begin onMonday, September 28th, with an earlycocktail reception or dinner to be fol-

lowed by the 7:30 pm performance ofGiuseppe Verdi’s Otello at the MET. This willbe a new production directed by Bartlett Sherwith scenic designs by Es Devlin. The castassembled for the prestigious Opening Nightwill repeat their portrayals this evening: Lat-vian dramatic tenor Aleksandrs Antonenkosinging his first MET Otello, the role that cat-apulted him to stardom in Salzburg; Bulgar-ian soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Desdemona,following her sensational debut this winter asMimi; and the Serbian Verdi baritone ZeljkoLucic as Iago. The conductor will be thePhiladelphia Orchestra’s charismatic youngMusic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Pre-miered at La Scala in 1887, Verdi’s toweringpenultimate work for the stage is perhapseven more successful than the original Shake-speare with theaddition of suchpivot al scenes asIago’s Credo, thebrilliant Otello-Iagoduet at the close ofAct II, and Desde-mona’s poignantWillow Song/AveMaria. By anymeasure, it is an

unsurpassed landmark of Italian opera.

On Tuesday, September 29th, we willreturn to the MET for the 7:30 pm per-formance of Verdi’s ‘middle period’ IlTr o va tore. The traditional production

by the team of director Sir David McVicar and designer CharlesEdwards has been praised for capturing the ambience of 15th cen-tury Spain with a palette reflecting Goya’s colorful canvases.Tonight’s star-studded cast will be headed by Russian sopranoAnna Netrebko repeating her mellifluous Leonora from Berlinand Salzburg; the stentorian American mezzo-soprano Dolora Za-jick as the Gypsy Azucena; Korean-born tenor Yonghoon Lee asthe ill-fated troubadour Manrico (Mr. Lee ‘brought down the house’this March when he replaced Jonas Kaufmann in ‘Carmen’ onshort notice); and the silver-haired Russian baritone DmitriHvorostovsky in one of his signature roles as the Count di Luna.The conductor will be Marco Armiliato.

A change of pace on Wednesday, September 30th, will take us toLincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall for a 7:30 pm concert by theNew York Philharmonic. Music Director Alan Gilbert will beon the podium for Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 andJohannes Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The piano soloist will beEmanuel Ax, a favorite artist for NY audiences.

Thursday evening, October 1st, our four-day Tour will concludewith the 7:00 pm performance of George Gershwin’s An Ameri-can in Paris at Broadway’s Palace Theatre. With an updated bookby Craig Lucas and choreography by the Royal Opera’s Christo-pher Weeldon, “The city of light is ablaze with movement in therhapsodic new stage adaptation.” Ballet dancers Leanne Cope andRobert Fairchild (in the role made famous by Gene Kelly in theeponymous film) bring the romance to life as Gershwin’s score un-

folds with such hits as ‘I got Rhythm’,‘The Man I Love’, ‘Who Cares’, ‘I’llBuild a Stairway to Paradise’, ‘S Won-derful’, and ‘But Not for Me’. The pro-duction direct from the ParisianThéâtre du Châtelet “weds music andmovement, song and story with suchexhilarating brio that you may find yourfeet fidgeting under your seat before it’sover, and your heart alight with a long-ing to be swept up in the dance.”(quotes from NY Times).

Independent departures should be onFriday morning, October 2nd.

Sonya Yoncheva

The MET’s Il Trovatore

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Alexsandrs Antonenko

Ken Howard/Metropolitan O

pera

Anna NetrebkoDmitriHvorosovsky

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Leanne Cope and Robert Fairchild in An American inParis on Broadway

II. NEW YORK HOLIDAY WEEKENDOCTOBER 21ST – 24TH

During optimum October weather, our fallTour will begin on Wednesday the 21stwith the eagerly anticipated Concert Per-

formance of Richard Strauss’s searing emo-tional opera Electra at Carnegie Hall. Therevered Boston Symphony Orchestra willbe led by the dynamic young Latvian AndrisNelsons, who has already earned his spurs inhis second season as the acclaimed newMusic Director. The cast will be headed by theAmerican dramatic soprano Christine Go-erke in her first NY assumption of Strauss’smost demanding role. Ms. Goerke has alreadytriumphed as Elektra in Chicago, and she hasbeen announced for the prestigious assign-ment of Brünnhilde in the MET’s next RINGCYCLE. German soprano Gun-Brit Barkminwill be heard as Elektra’s more timid sisterChrysothemis, and American mezzo-sopranoJane Henschel will portray their adulterousmother Klytemnestra. The male contingent

will feature British baritone James Rutherford as Orestes andGerman tenor Gerhard Siegel as Aegisth. (Our tickets for this sold-out event will be in the Dress Circle or Balcony, where the acousticsare exceptional.)

At 7:30 pm on Thursday, October 22nd, we look forward to theMET’s renowned Franco Zeffirelli production of Giacomo Puc-cini’s final opera, Turandot. Zeffirelli’s grandiose vision and sen-sitive direction have caused audiences to gasp every time thisproduction is revived. During an era when the MET is apparentlyabandoning most of the repertoire’s grandest stagings, we are for-

tunate to encounter Zef-firelli’s iconic ‘Turandot’again before it disap-pears. American sopranoLise Lindstrom hastriumphed as Prin cessTurandot throughoutthe world’s leadinghouses and will repeather ‘tour-de-force’ thisevening. Opposite herwill be Argentine tenorMarcelo Alvarez asher ardent suitor PrinceCalaf. The rising Amer-ican soprano Leah Cro-

cetto will make her Met debut as the sympathetic slave-girl Liu,and James Morris will lend his Wagnerian bass-baritone to hisportrayal of Calaf’s father, Timur.

On Friday, October 23rd, the New York Philharmonic willbrighten our morning with their 11:00 am subscription concert.The Russian maestro Semyon Bychkov will be on the podium foran all-Brahms program. The seldom-performed Double Concertofor Violin and Cello will be followed by his Symphony No. 1, con-cluding with Brahms’s familiar chorale melody. The soloists willbe the Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili and French GautierCapuçon. (Friday evening is left free for independent activities.)

Saturday evening, October 24th, we will return to the MET for the7:30 pm performance of Richard Wagner’s music-drama,Tannhäuser. The classic production directed by Otto Schenkwith scenic designs by Günther Schneider-Siemssen remainsone of the glories of the MET’s repertoire, evoking the sensuality

of the notoriously erotic Venusberg bacchanalas well as the romantic landscape of 13th cen-tury Thuringia. We are fortunate that MusicDirector James Levine will be our experi-enced Wagnerian conductor this evening.The cast of principals is headed by SouthAfrican heldentenor Johan Botha as a re-markably tireless Tannhäuser, arguablytoday’s most successful exponent of the cul-minating ‘Rome Narrative’ which defeats somany of his rivals. The Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek will open Act II with Eliz-abeth’s radiant aria ‘Dich, teure Halle’, to befollowed in Act III with Wagner’s mostpoignant farewell Prayer, ‘Allmächt’geJungfrau’. American mezzo-soprano MichelledeYoung returns to the MET as a seductiveVenus, and the handsome Swedish baritonePeter Mattei as Wolfram will intone Wag-ner’s celebrated Hymn to the Evening Star.German bass Günther Groissböck will por-tray the Landgraf Hermann.

Independent departures should be on Sundaymorning, October 25th.

Two New York Holidays:

I. September 28 – October 1 Price per person, based on double occu-

pancy $ *Single room supplement $

II. October 21 – 24 Price per person, based on double occupancy $ *Single room supplement $

Airfare NOT included.

*Because the New York Athletic Club has a limited numberof king-bedded rooms, couples requesting a one-beddedroom will be accommodated in a queen-sized bed. For anycouples requesting a king bed, there will be an additionalcharge of $50 per night ($200 for the Tour) for this up-grade, depending on availability.

IMPORTANT: For September, our tickets for the MET willbe in the Prime Orchestra for ‘Otello’ and in the Dress Cir-cle for ‘Il Trovatore’. For October, our tickets will be in thePrime Orchestra for ‘Tannhäuser’ and in the Dress Circlefor ‘Turandot’. For Carnegie Hall on October 21, our tick-ets will be in the Dress Circle or Balcony. Our NY Philhar-monic tickets will be on the main floor.

James Levine

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Andris Nelsons

The MET’s Tannhaüser

Christine Goerke

Johan Botha

Eva-Maria Westbroek

Monet’s Garden at Ste Adresse, Metropolitan Museum

Marty Sohl/M

etropolitan Opera