James Levine and The MET Orchestra return for their annual series at Carnegie Hall with three concerts this season in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. The series launches on Sunday, October 13 at 3:00 p.m. with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato singing Rossini'sGiovanna d'Arco as well as arias from Mozart'sLa clemenza di Tito. Also on the program are Verdi's Overture to I vespri Siciliani, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, and Elliott Carter's Variations for Orchestra. This marks Maestro Levine's first performance at Carnegie Hall since his triumphant return to the podium on May 19.
Maestro Levine and the orchestra return onSunday, December 22 at 3:00 p.m. for an all Mahler program with baritone
Peter Mattei singing Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Also on the program is Mahler's Seventh Symphony. For the final program, on Sunday, May 11 at 3:00 p.m., cellist Lynn Harrell joins the orchestra and Levine in Dvorák's Cello Concerto in B Minor on an all Dvo?ák program that also includes his Symphony No. 7 in D Minor andCarnival Overture.
Born in Kansas and a graduate of Wichita State University and The Academy of Vocal Arts, mezzo-soprano
Joyce DiDonato trained at the young artist programs of the San Francisco, Houston, and Santa Fe opera companies. Her signature parts include the
Bel Canto roles of Rossini. Most recently, she has triumphed in both the title role of Maria Stuarda at the Metropolitan Opera and the title role ofLa donna del lago at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She is an exclusive recording artist with EMI/Virgin Classics, and her third solo CD for the label, Diva Divo, won a Grammy Award in 2012 in the category of Best Classical Vocal Solo. Other honors include the highly-prized Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Awards in 2010, as well as Recital of the Year for the album Colbran, the Muse. She is an inductee of the Gramophone Hall of Fame and has collected a German Echo Klassik Award as Female Singer of the Year, in addition to the Met's
Beverly Sills Award, the Royal Philharmonic Society's Singer of the Year, and citations from Operalia and the
Richard Tucker and
George London Foundations. She was also awarded the prestigious Premio Franco Abbiati Award for Best Singer 2011.
Since his June 5, 1971, debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Tosca, Music Director
James Levinehas developed a relationship with the company that is unparalleled in its history and unique in the musical world today. He conducted the first-ever Met performances of Mozart's Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, Verdi's I vespri Siciliani, I Lombardi and Stiffelio, Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Schoenberg's Erwartung and Moses und Aron, Berg's Lulu, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, as well as the world premieres of
John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and John Harbison's The Great Gatsby. All told, he has led nearly 2,500 performances of 85 different operas at the Met. Maestro Levine inaugurated the "Metropolitan Opera Presents" television series for PBS in 1977, founded the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in 1980, returned Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen to the repertoire in 1989 (in the first integral cycles in over 35 years there). Expanding on that tradition, he and the MET Orchestra began touring in concert in 1991, and since then have performed around the world as well as in its own subscription series at
Carnegie Hall. He returns to the Met podium for the first since 2011 this fall, 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'sWozzeck.
The MET Orchestra is today regarded as one of the world's finest orchestras. From the time of the company's inception in 1883, the ensemble has worked with leading conductors in both opera and concert performances and has developed into an orchestra of enormous technical polish and style. The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-2014 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.
