Met Opera to Stream 'NICO MUHLY, TWO BOYS, AND OTHER WORKS' Live from Le Poisson Rouge, 5/14

The Metropolitan Opera announced that "An Evening with Nico Muhly, Two Boys, and other works" will be available for live video streaming on both NPR Music (www.npr.org/music) and WQXR's Q2 Music online contemporary classical station (www.wqxr.org/q2music) this Tuesday, May 14, beginning at 10 p.m. The concert, which takes place at Le Poisson Rouge, is curated by Muhly, who will appear as host and performer. Metropolitan Opera singers Jennifer Zetlan and Paul Appleby will be joined by the composer on piano. Muhly will also perform selections for piano and viola with featured artist Nadia Sirota, his frequent collaborator. Special guests will include violin duo Angela and Jennifer Chun.

Concerts will be presented at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET (standing room tickets are still available for both shows), with only the latter performance available for live streaming. Visit this link to watch live on NPR Music's site or this link to watch live on Q2 Music, with live commentary from the venue provided by NPR Music's Anastasia Tsioulcas and Q2 Music's Conor Hanick. Viewers on both sites will be able to participate in a live webchat hosted by NPR Music's Tom Huizenga. The program will be available as an archival video recording on both sites following the performance.

The concerts, which anticipate the Met premiere of Muhly's opera Two Boys in October 2013, will feature a diverse repertory curated by the composer, ranging from early music to contemporary work and including two arias from Two Boys. Appleby, who will star as Brian in Two Boys this fall, will perform the character's Act I aria "I'm Only Sixteen." Zetlan, who will also appear in Two Boys as Rebecca, will sing the character's Act I aria, "I'm Scared For My Life."

Tickets are available through Le Poisson Rouge for $35 (seated) or $20 (standing) at (212) 505-3474 or lepoissonrouge.com. Standing room tickets will be sold at $25 on the day of the performance, subject to availability. Underwriting for the Muhly concerts has been provided by a generous gift from Dr. Coco Lazaroff.

"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 June 2011. With a libretto by celebrated playwright Craig Lucas, Two Boys explores the shadowy world of the Internet as a detective 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. This striking new work, conducted by David Robertson and staged by Bartlett Sher in a co-production with English National Opera, receives its Met premiere on October 21, 2013 and runs through November 14, 2013.

Muhly has composed a wide scope of work for ensembles, soloists and organizations including the New York Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Chicago Symphony, Carnegie Hall, New York City Ballet, Paris Opéra Ballet, soprano Jessica Rivera, countertenor Iestyn Davies, violinist Hilary Hahn, choreographer Benjamin Millepied, and designer/illustrator Maira Kalman. Recently, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Decca released an entire disc of Muhly's choral music, A Good Understanding. The Aurora Orchestra recorded his Seeing is Believing, and with choreographer Stephen Petronio, Muhly created the evening-length I Drink the Air Before Me, both of which were also released on Decca. His chamber opera, Dark Sisters, commissioned by the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Music Theatre Group, and the Gotham Chamber Opera, premiered in New York in the fall of 2012. Muhly's film credits include scores for Joshua (2007), Margaret(2009), and Academy Award Best Picture nominee The Reader (2008); all have been recorded and released commercially.

Appleby is a graduate of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and has appeared at the Met as Brighella in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, Demetrius in the world premiere of the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island, and Hylas in this season's revival of Berlioz's Les Troyens. Zetlan, a rising soprano who has sung at the Met in Prokofiev's War and Peace, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Verdi's Macbeth, and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, will sing the role of Rebecca in the Met premiere of Two Boys. Sirota has given critically acclaimed performances of new works and commissions by Muhly, Marcos Balter, Caleb Burhans, Judd Greenstein, Missy Mazzoli, and other major contemporary composers. She performs regularly with, among others, the Meredith Monk Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, and the Wordless Music Orchestra. The dynamic violin duo, sisters Angela and Jennifer Chun, has appeared under the baton of renowned conductors Iván Fischer, Zubin Mehta, André Previn, and Leonard Slatkin at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and Covent Garden. In 2010, the duo released their latest album, Bartok: 44 Duos for 2 Violins, to great acclaim.

"An Evening with Nico Muhly, Two Boys, and other works" marks the second collaboration between the Metropolitan Opera and Le Poisson Rouge. The partnership started in October 2012 with "An Evening with Thomas Adès & The Tempest." With the composer at the piano, that evening explored the music of Ives, Purcell, Stravinsky, and Tippett, as well as selections from Adès's The Tempest, which was performed at the Met last fall. Metropolitan Opera singers Simon Keenlyside, Kate Lindsey, and Iestyn Davies were featured.

Le Poisson Rouge is a multimedia art cabaret founded by musicians on the site of the historic Village Gate. Dedicated to the fusion of popular and art cultures in music, film, theater, dance, and fine art, the venue's mission is to revive the symbiotic relationship between art and revelry; to establish a creative asylum for both artists and audiences.