Renee Fleming, Kelli O'Hara and Nathan Gunn Lead the Met's MERRY WIDOW, Beginning Tonight

Renée Fleming adds a new role to her extensive repertory when she sings her first-ever performances of Hanna Glawari, the title role in Lehár's The Merry Widow, at the Met this season. Four-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman makes her Met debut as director and choreographer of a new production of the comic operetta, in which a wealthy widow's countrymen launch a romantic plot to keep her -- and her tax dollars -- within their borders.

Highlights of the score include the familiar "Vilja Song" for the title character as well as a climactic song-and-dance set piece featuring a chorus line of grisettes at the legendary Parisian restaurant Maxim's.

Sir Andrew Davis conducts a cast that also includes Broadway star Kelli O'Hara in her Met debut in the comic role of Valencienne, Nathan Gunn as the handsome Danilo, Alek Shrader as Camille, and Thomas Allen as Baron Zeta.

The Merry Widow will be performed in a new English translation by Jeremy Sams and will feature set design by Julian Crouch, costume design by William Ivey Long in his Met debut, and lighting design by Paule Constable.

The January 17 matinee performance will be transmitted worldwide as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which now reaches more than 1,900 movie theaters in 69 countries around the world.

Tonight's New Year's Eve opening performance will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS XM Channel 74, as will the performances on January 6, 13, and 17, April 28, and May 7. The December 31 and May 7 performances will also be streamed live on the Met's Web site, www.metopera.org.

For more information on The Merry Widow, including casting by date, click here.

Hanna Glawari will be Renée Fleming's 22nd role at the Met, where she has given more than 230 performances in a wide-ranging repertory. Her most recent appearances with the company have been as the title characters in Dvo?ák's Rusalka, Handel's Rodelinda, Rossini's Armida, and Massenet's Thais; Desdemona in Verdi's Otello; and two Richard Strauss roles, the Countess in Capriccio and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. These will be Fleming's first-ever staged performances of The Merry Widow. In 2010, she sang excerpts from the operetta in concert at the Dresden Semperoper.

Susan Stroman is the director and choreographer of nine Broadway musicals, most recently Bullets Over Broadway, Big Fish, The Scottsboro Boys, Young Frankenstein, and The Frogs. She is the winner of four Tony Awards, including one each as director and choreographer for her work on the 2001 hit The Producers, and has been nominated an additional 12 times, for directing or choreographing a variety of productions including The Music Man, Steel Pier, Show Boat, Contact, and Crazy For You.

Nathan Gunn's Met repertory of 15 roles includes Clyde Griffiths in the world premiere of Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy, the title role in Britten's Billy Budd, Schaunard in Puccini's La Bohème, Raimbaud in Rossini's Le Comte Ory, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Mercutio in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, a role he has performed more than 30 times with the company.

Kelli O'Hara has appeared in nine Broadway musicals, earning Tony nominations for her last five starring roles: Francesca in The Bridges of Madison County, Billie Bendix in Nice Work If You Can Get It, Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, Babe Williams in The Pajama Game, and Clara Johnson in The Light in the Piazza. She recently played Mrs. Darling in NBC's live broadcast of Peter Pan, and later this season will star as Anna Leonowens in a Lincoln Center Theater revival of The King and I.

Alek Shrader was among the winners of the Met's 2007 National Council Auditions, a process documented in the film The Audition. He made his Met debut in 2012 as Ferdinand in the company premiere of Thomas Adès's The Tempest and originated the role of Count Almaviva in the Met's abridged, English-language presentation of The Barber of Seville later that season. He returned last season to sing Tamino in the Met's holiday presentation of Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Thomas Allen made his Met debut in 1981 as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and has since sung nine additional roles with the company, including the title characters in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Britten's Billy Budd; Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte; Eisenstein in Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus; Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro; and Beckmesser in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Sir Andrew Davis conducted the Met premiere of The Merry Widow in 2000. He made his Met debut in 1981 leading Richard Strauss's Salome and has conducted a total of ten operas with the company, including Don Giovanni; Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, which he also conducts at the Met this season; and both the Met premiere and 2011 revival of Capriccio. Davis is the Music Director at Lyric Opera of Chicago and Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The Merry Widow will feature a new English translation by Jeremy Sams, who devised and wrote The Enchanted Island for his Met debut in 2011 and returned last season as lyricist and director for a new production of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus. The set designer is Julian Crouch, whose previous Met credits include The Enchanted Island, Philip Glass's Satyagraha, John Adams's Doctor Atomic, and the Met's 125th Anniversary Gala. Six-time Tony Award winner William Ivey Long makes his Met debut as costume designer; his many notable credits include Nine, Guys and Dolls, Smokey Joe's Café, Chicago, Cabaret, Contact, The Producers, Hairspray, Grey Gardens, Cinderella, and Bullets Over Broadway. Paule Constable's previous lighting designs for the Met include Satyagraha, Don Giovanni, Anna Bolena, and this season's new production of Le Nozze di Figaro.

Pictured: Renée Fleming as Hanna in Lehár's "The Merry Widow." Susan Stroman's new production opens on December 31, 2014. Photo by Brigitte Lacombe/Metropolitan Opera.