Ilya Bannik to Make Met Debut in IOLANTA Tonight

Ilya Bannik will make his Met debut as King René in tonight's performance of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, replacing Alexei Tanovitski, who is ill.

The Ukrainian bass sings frequently at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre, where his recent roles have included the Four Villains in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Il Barone di Trobonok in Rossini's Il Viaggio a Reims, Samuel in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, and Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. His other recent performances include Gremin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at Edmonton Opera and the Emperor in Robert Lepage's staging of Stravinsky's Le Rossignol at Canadian Opera Company, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Lyon Opera, and Dutch National Opera.

Tonight's performance is the Met premiere of Iolanta, which will be presented in a double bill with Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle. Both operas are conducted by Valery Gergiev and directed by Mariusz Trelinski in his Met debut. Iolanta also stars Anna Netrebko in the title role, Piotr Beczala as Vaudémont, Aleksei Markov as Robert, and Elchin Azizov in his Met debut as Ibn-Hakia.

To post a comment, you must register and login.