Met Rebroadcasts 'The Siege of Corinth' (1975) with Sills on Feb.9

In a tribute to the late Beverly Sills, a legendary soprano and a frequent guest on the Met broadcasts, the company will air her April 19, 1975 performance as Pamira in Rossini's The Siege of Corinth over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 1:30PM EST on February 9, 2008.

Sills, who had made her triumphant Met debut less than two weeks prior to this performance, sings opposite Justino Díaz as Maometto and Shirley Verrett as Neocle in a performance led by Maestro Thomas Schippers.

During the first intermission, the audience will be treated to excerpts from a 1975 interview with Sills that was heard on Saturday, April 12, 1975 (a week before this broadcast) in which she discussed a variety of subjects, including her Met debut, The Siege of Corinth, and her career plans at the time.  The second intermission will feature a speech honoring Beverly Sills by her great friend Carol Burnett that was given at the Beverly Sills Tribute in August 2007.

For more than seven decades, the Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts have brought opera into millions of homes and enriched the lives of many, playing a vital and unparalleled role in the development and appreciation of opera in this country. Since 1940, the broadcasts have been heard in Canada, and in 1990 they expanded to include regular transmission to Europe.  Today worldwide coverage has grown to include not only more than 30 European countries, but also South America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and China.

Listeners can visit www.operainfo.org for a wealth of information about the Met broadcasts.  For details about all Met performances this season, as well as ticket information, visit the Met's website at www.metopera.org.