DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES to Return to the Met on 5/4

Dialogues des Carmélites, Poulenc's opera about a group of nuns whose faith is tested under the Terror of the French Revolution, will return to the Met repertory on May 4 for the first time since 2002. In role debuts, Isabel Leonard Will sing the naïve aristocrat Blanche de la Force and Patricia Racette will sing Madame Lidoine, the imposing Prioress of a Carmelite convent. Felicity Palmer will reprise her portrayal of the ailing Madame de Croissy, a role she sang to acclaim in the most recent Met revival of the opera. Louis Langrée conducts his first Met performances of the work, with a cast that also includes Elizabeth Bishop as Mother Marie, Erin Morley as Sister Constance, and Paul Appleby as Blanche's brother, the Chevalier de la Force. The opera will be presented in John Dexter's acclaimed 1977 Met premiere production.

Louis Langrée made his Met debut in 2007, leading the new production premiere of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. His subsequent company performances have included the 2010 new production premiere of Thomas's Hamlet and revivals of Puccini's La Bohème and Mozart's Don Giovanni. He is Principal Conductor of the Camerata Salzburg and Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival. Earlier this season, he led Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and La Clemenza di Tito at the Vienna State Opera.

Last fall at the Met, Isabel Leonard sang Miranda in the Met premiere of Thomas Adès's The Tempest and Rosina in the abridged, English-language holiday version of Rossini's The Barber of Seville. The winner of the Met's 2011 Beverly Sills Artist Award and the 2013 Richard Tucker Award, her Met repertory includes three Mozart roles-Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and Dorabella in Così fan tutte-as well as Stéphano in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, the role of her debut. She recently sang Sesto inLa Clemenza di Tito with the Canadian Opera Company. Next season, she will sing Dorabella in a revival of Così fan tutte led by Met Music Director James Levine and Rosina with San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Dallas Opera.

Patricia Racette sings Madame Lidoine for the first time this season; she sang Blanche de la Force in the 2002 Met revival of Dialogues des Carmélites. Her extensive Met repertory includes numerous Puccini heroines-the title characters in Tosca and Madama Butterfly, Musetta and Mimì in La Bohème, and the three principal soprano roles in Il Trittico-and four Verdi heroines: Violetta in La Traviata, Alice Ford in Falstaff, Elisabeth de Valois in Don Carlo, and Leonora in Il Trovatore. Next season, she will sing the title role inTosca and Maddalena in Giordano's Andrea Chénier at the Met, Cio-Cio-San at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and three roles at San Francisco Opera: Cio-Cio-San, Margherita in Boito'sMefistofele, and Julie LaVerne in Kern's Show Boat.

Erin Morley, a graduate of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, made her company debut in 2008 as First Madrigal in Puccini's Manon Lescaut. She has also sung Second Niece in Peter Grimes, Masha in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, the Dew Fairy in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, Echo in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos,Madame Podtochina's Daughter in Shostakovich's The Nose, and both Woglinde and the Forest Bird in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. This summer, she will perform in the Met's Summer Recital Series at both Central Park SummerStage and Brooklyn Bridge Park, and next season she returns to the Met to sing her first Sophie in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.

Elizabeth Bishop last sang Mother Marie at the Met in 2002. Earlier this season, she sang her first Met performances of Dido in Berlioz's Les Troyens. She made her company debut as a Venetian Secretary in Britten's Death in Venice in 1994 and has since sung six additional roles at the Met, including the title role in Iphigénie en Tauride, Venus in Wagner'sTannhäuser, Maria Bolkonskaya in Prokofiev's War and Peace, and the Second Norn in Wagner's Götterdämmerung. Next season, she sings two Bellini roles at the Met: Teresa in La Sonnambula and Enrichetta in I Puritani.

Felicity Palmer has sung Madame de Croissy to acclaim at the Met, the Bavarian State Opera, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She made her Met debut in 2000 as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung and has sung six other roles with the company, including Fricka in Wagner's Das Rheingold, The Countess in The Queen of Spades, Geneviève in Debussy'sPelléas et Mélisande, and Klytämnestra in Strauss's Elektra. In 2008, she sang in two new production premieres, making company role debuts as Mrs. Sedley in Britten's Peter Grimesand the Marquise de Berkenfield in Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment. Earlier this year, she sang Frau Peachum in Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.

Paul Appleby, a graduate of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, made his Met debut in 2011 as Brighella in Ariadne auf Naxos and has subsequently sung Demetrius in the world premiere of the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island and Hylas in Les Troyens. Next season, he returns to the Met to sing Brian in the U.S. premiere of Nico Muhly's Two Boys; he also sings Fritz in Offenbach's La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein with Santa Fe Opera and Ferrando in a new production of Così fan tutte at the Canadian Opera Company.