The Metropolitan Opera to Honor Jon Vickers

The Metropolitan Opera on Sirius XM (Channel 74) will honor the memory of the late Canadian tenor Jon Vickers, who passed away last week, by playing seven of his greatest Met performances in rotation throughout the week of July 20. The legendary dramatic tenor gave 280 Met performances during his career with the company, which spanned 27 years and included 17 different roles.

The company will honor Vickers in other ways throughout the coming season, including dedicating the opening night performance of Verdi's Otello on September 21 to his memory.

The archival broadcasts that will air in rotation next week cover the full span of Vickers's Met career, from 1960 to 1987. The performances include a 1960 matinee of Beethoven's Fidelio, conducted by Karl Böhm and also starring Birgit Nilsson; a 1961 performance of Wagner's Die Walküre, in which Vickers sang his most frequent Met role, Siegmund, opposite Nilsson and Gladys Kuchta, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf; performances of two of the title roles with which he was most identified, Britten's Peter Grimes (from 1969) and Verdi's Otello (from 1978); a rare comic role, Vašek in a 1978 performance of Smetana's The Bartered Bride; a 1979 performance of Wagner's Parsifal, also starring Christa Ludwig and conducted by James Levine in one of his first Met performances of the opera; and Vickers's final Met performance, the April 18, 1987 matinee of Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila, also starring Marilyn Horne.

More details on the seven performances, each of which will air 3 or 4 times during the week, is available below. For a complete schedule with broadcast times, please visit http://metopera.org/Season/Radio/Sirius-XM/.

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