Sondra Radvanovsky News

Patricia Racette and Sondra Radvanovsky will reprise their acclaimed performances of one of the most famous roles in opera, the heroine of Puccini's Tosca, at the Met this season. Racette sings the role beginning October 29, opposite Roberto Alagna as Cavaradossi and George Gagnidze as Scarpia. Radvanovsky takes the role on December 11, singing with Marcello Giordani as Cavaradossi and Gagnidze as Scarpia. Two Italian conductors, Riccardo Frizza and Marco Armiliato, lead this season's performances of Puccini's celebrated tragedy. On December 20, Portuguese soprano Elisabete Matos sings her first Met Tosca, and on December 17, Brazilian tenor Ricardo Tamura makes his Met debut as Cavaradossi. The November 9 matinee of Tosca, starring Racette, Alagna, and Gagnidze, will be transmitted live as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which now reaches more than 1,950 theaters in 64 countries around the world.

The November 9 matinee of Tosca, starring Patricia Racette, Roberto Alagna, and George Gagnidze, will be transmitted live as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which now reaches more than 1,950 theaters in 64 countries around the world. Thirteen million tickets have been sold to opera lovers worldwide.

NORMA opened at the Metropolitan Opera starring Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. Angela Meade also stars, along with mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich (Adalgisa) and tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko (Pollione). Riccardo Frizza conducts. The production runs though November 1, 2013. For tickets or more information, visit: http://www.metoperafamily.org/opera/norma-bellini-tickets.aspx

Bellini's “Norma” opened at the Metropolitan Opera last Monday night to a full audience giving resounding praise to the leading lady, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky. Ms. Radvanovsky's performance of the title role was incredibly expressive and most articulately nuanced. Her inaugural American performance of the role was the driving force that kept John Copley's otherwise dull production moving forward. Having been the first time she has sung bel canto at this house, she performed with amazing elegance, drawing the audience to her voice with seductive pianissimos and trumpeting top notes.

The Met's Summer HD Festival returns for its fifth year today, August 24, with ten free outdoor screenings of popular performances from the Met's award-winning Live in HD series.

The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's award-winning series of live transmissions to movie theaters, will reach its widest-ever global audience in its eighth season, which begins on October 5 with a new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Met Music Director James Levine makes his highly-anticipated return to the screen with Verdi's Falstaff on December 14 and the first Live in HD performance of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte on April 26. The Live in HD series, the world's largest provider of alternative content, reaches more than 1,900 theaters in 64 countries, and offers subtitles in nine languages, including Swedish for the first time this season. To accommodate audience demand in Europe, more than 85 cinemas have been added to the HD network in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Riccardo Zandonai's masterpiece Francesca da Rimini, staged by the Met for the first time in more than a quarter of a century, airs on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, August 18 at 12 noon on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera at 12:30 p.m.) Check out the photos below!

Today, July 27, 2013 at 2:00pm, Join Center Stage Opera and Maestro Gregory Buchalter as he coaches the next generation of opera stars in this unique, intimate setting. In addition to working individually with each participating singer, Maestro Buchalter will be answering questions from the audience and sharing his deep insight, born of working in one of the most important opera houses in the world.

On Saturday July 27, 2013 at 2:00pm, Join Center Stage Opera and Maestro Gregory Buchalter as he coaches the next generation of opera stars in this unique, intimate setting. In addition to working individually with each participating singer, Maestro Buchalter will be answering questions from the audience and sharing his deep insight, born of working in one of the most important opera houses in the world.

The Met's Summer HD Festival returns for its fifth year on August 24, with ten free outdoor screenings of popular performances from the Met's award-winning Live in HD series. The festival, which more than 40,000 people attended last year, kicks off with a screening of the Met's acclaimed production of Verdi's La Traviata starring Natalie Dessay, Matthew Polenzani, andDmitri Hvorostovsky. Three new productions from the Met's 2012-13 season will be screened in this year's festival: Donizetti's Maria Stuarda starring Joyce DiDonato in the title role, Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera with Sondra Radvanovsky, Marcelo Álvarez, and Hvorostovsky, and Thomas Adès's The Tempest starring Simon Keenlyside. The festival will also feature a variety of operas from past Live in HD seasons, including Massenet's Manon starring Anna Netrebko, Verdi'sOtello with Johan Botha and Renée Fleming, and the Met's popular production of Verdi's Aida, which will close out the festival on Labor Day.

The Met's Summer HD Festival returns for its fifth year on August 24, with ten free outdoor screenings of popular performances from the Met's award-winning Live in HD series. The festival, which more than 40,000 people attended last year, kicks off with a screening of the Met's acclaimed production of Verdi's La Traviata starring Natalie Dessay, Matthew Polenzani, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

The Canadian Opera Company has closed another successful opera season by recording an average attendance of 90% for 2012/2013. A total of 114,133 patrons attended the 61 performances of the company's seven mainstage productions this season in the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts: Verdi's Il Trovatore, Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Richard Strauss's Salome and Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites.

The regular season just ended for the Metropolitan Opera--all that's left is a series of HD rebroadcasts on Lincoln Center Plaza and a couple of low profile concerts in New York City parks--and it's time for a look back at what kind of season it was. With seven new productions and 21 other operas in rep during a season that ran from the end of September to mid-May, the Met was nothing if not far-reaching in its repertoire. And that's the way it should be. But how did its ambitions work out?

Beginning Wednesday, June 19, the Metropolitan Opera and NCM Fathom Events will once again present Summer HD Encores, a series of encore performances from the groundbreaking Live in HD series, in nearly 400 select U.S. cinemas nationwide

On Sunday afternoon March 10, the air was buzzing with anticipation at the Met, before the performances by the ten singers who had made it to the Grand Finals of the opera company's National Council auditions. No, this wasn't the opera equivalent of American Idol, where the emphasis is on the judges as much as the performers. It was a grown-up affair.

After an intense semi-final round of competition, the Metropolitan Opera today announced the names of ten finalists who will sing on the Met stage in the 2013 National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert on Sunday, March 10 at 3:00 p.m., with the MET Orchestra conducted by Marco Armiliato. The auditions, which are celebrating their 60th anniversary this year, have been an important stepping stone in the career of many of the opera world's leading artists. 20 gifted young singers from around the country arrived in New York on Thursday afternoon to prepare for today's semi-final round, in which they sang on the Met stage for the first time in their careers before a panel of judges. After deliberations, the panel has narrowed the field to ten singers who will move to the final phase of the competition.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 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. Met Music Director James Levine will return to the Met podium for the first time in two years, conducting three operas with which he has long been associated: a new production of Verdi's final masterpiece Falstaff, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Berg's Wozzeck. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will be conducting two operas in the 2013-14 season, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 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. Met Music Director James Levine will return to the Met podium for the first time in two years, conducting three operas with which he has long been associated: a new production of Verdi's final masterpiece Falstaff, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Berg's Wozzeck. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will be conducting two operas in the 2013-14 season, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 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. Met Music Director James Levine will return to the Met podium for the first time in two years, conducting three operas with which he has long been associated: a new production of Verdi's final masterpiece Falstaff, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Berg's Wozzeck. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will be conducting two operas in the 2013-14 season, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.