Metropolitan Opera Cast Change Advisory: RIGOLETTO

Bryan Hymel has withdrawn from upcoming performances as the Duke in Verdi's Rigoletto, due to personal reasons.

Francesco Demuro will sing the Duke in the March 6, 9, 15, and 20 performances; Matthew Polenzani will sing the performances on April 26, May 1, and 4; and Stephen Costello will sing the May 10 performance.

Italian tenor Francesco Demuro makes his Met role debut as the Duke, a role he has previously sung at Paris Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid, Opernhaus Zürich, and Oper Frankfurt. He made his Met debut in 2014 as Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème and was later seen as Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata. He has sung Alfredo with Paris Opera, Vienna State Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Other recent performances include Gabriele in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at Paris Opera and Nadir in Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles at Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. This season at the Met, he also sings Fenton in Verdi's Falstaff.

American tenor Matthew Polenzani has previously sung the Duke at the Met in the 2012-13 season. He has sung more than 360 performances with the company since his debut in 1997 as Boyar in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. Other Met roles include Nemorino in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, the title role of Mozart's Idomeneo, Ferrando in Mozart's Così Fan Tutte, the title character in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, and role debuts as Nadir in the Met new production of Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles and in the title role of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux. Also this season at the Met, he sings Vaudémont in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and the title role of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito.

American tenor Stephen Costello has previously sung the role of the Duke at the Met in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. He made his Met debut in 2007 as Arturo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor; other roles for the company include Camille de Rosillon in Lehár's The Merry Widow, Lord Percy in Donizetti's Anna Bolena, and Roméo in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. He has appeared at many of the world's leading opera houses and music festivals, including the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Vienna State Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, and the Salzburg Festival. This season he also sings Alfredo in the Met's new production of Verdi's La Traviata.

The cast for Rigoletto includes Nadine Sierra and Rosa Feola as Gilda, Ramona Zaharia as Maddalena, Roberto Frontali and George Gagnidze as Rigoletto, and Štefan Kocán and Dimitry Ivashchenko as Sparafucile. Nicola Luisotti conducts.

Performances of Rigoletto run through May 10, 2019.

For further information, please visit metopera.org.

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