DON GIOVANNI Opens 10/13 for Metropolitan Opera, Directed by Michael Grandage

Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will lead his first Met performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni, in a new production directed by Tony Award winner Michael Grandage in his Met debut.

The classic tale of lust, heartbreak, and revenge will star charismatic Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien in his first-ever Met performances of the notorious title character. For the first time with Don Giovanni at the Met, Luisi will conduct the performance from a cembalo in the orchestra pit. Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka and German soprano Mojca Erdmann make their Met debuts as two of Giovanni's female conquests, Donna Anna and Zerlina, opposite distinguished Mozartean Barbara Frittoli as the fiery Donna Elvira. Tenor Ramón Vargas sings the role of Donna Anna's fiancé, the nobleman Don Ottavio, and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni is Giovanni's hapless manservant Leporello. Joshua Bloom sings the shepherd Masetto and Štefan Kocán is the vengeful Commendatore.

Louis Langrée, who last conducted this opera at the Met in the 2008-09 season, will lead the October 31, November 3, November 7, and November 11 performances. Don Giovanni opens at the Met October 13 and will be transmitted worldwide as part of The Met: Live in HD series on Saturday, October 29, at 12:55 p.m.

Grandage, the longtime artistic director of London's Donmar Warehouse, won a 2010 Tony Award for directing Joshua Logan's drama Red. Last season, he directed new productions of Billy Budd at Glyndebourne and Madama Butterfly at Houston Grand Opera. His other Broadway credits include Peter Morgan's docudrama Frost/Nixon, a 2009 staging of Hamlet starring Jude Law, and an upcoming revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita in spring 2012.

Grandage's design team includes his longtime collaborator Christopher Oram (sets and costumes), also a recent Tony Award winner for Red; lighting designer Paule Constable, who also designed this season's Anna Bolena and Satyagraha; and choreographer Ben Wright, whose credits include numerous operas and musicals in England and Scotland. Oram and Wright make their Met debuts with this production.

Luisi, who was elevated to the position of Principal Conductor in September, will conduct his first Met performances of Don Giovanni this season. He led performances of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro in the Met's 2009-10 season and has a Met repertory that includes critically acclaimed performances of Verdi's Don Carlo, Rigoletto, and Simon Boccanegra; Puccini's La Bohème, Tosca, and Turandot; Richard Strauss's Die Ägyptische Helena (the 2007 new production premiere), Elektra, and Ariadne auf Naxos; Berg's Lulu; and Wagner's Das Rheingold. Later this season, he will conduct the new production premieres of Wagner's Siegfried and Massenet's Manon, as well as a revival of Verdi's La Traviata.

Kwiecien has sung Don Giovanni at numerous international opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Munich State Opera; San Francisco Opera; Santa Fe Opera; and Warsaw Opera, earning praise for his accomplished vocalism and seductive interpretation. A graduate of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Kwiecien made his Met debut as Kuligin in a 1999 revival of Janá?ek's Kát'a Kabanová. He has sung 136 performances at the Met, most frequently as Marcello in La Bohème, Mozart's Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Guglielmo in Cosí fan tutte. Don Giovanni will be his fourth leading role in a new production at the Met, following his performances as Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale (2006), Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor (2007), and Escamillo in Carmen (2009).

Rebeka, who will sing Donna Anna for all 17 performances of Don Giovanni at the Met this season, sang the role last season at the Deutsche Oper Berlin under the baton of Roberto Abbado. The young soprano's other recent high-profile engagements include performances of Violetta in La Traviata with both Yves Abel and Lorin Maazel; Micaëla in Carmen with Zubin Mehta; Anaï in Moise et Pharaon with Riccardo Muti; and La Contessa di Folleville in Il Viaggio a Reims with Kent Nagano. Fellow debuting artist Erdmann sang Zerlina at the 2011 Baden-Baden Festival in a production conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; she will also sing the Woodbird in the new production premiere of Siegfried this season at the Met. Frittoli last sang Donna Elvira at the Met in the 2008-09 season; her extensive Met repertory also includes Donna Anna, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, the title character in Suor Angelica (in the 2007 new production premiere of Il Trittico), Desdemona in Otello, Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, and Mimì in La Bohème, a role she recently sang to tremendous acclaim on the Met's 2011 tour of Japan.

Vargas will make his Met role debut as Don Ottavio, a role he last performed in Covent Garden's 2008-09 season. It will be his 17th leading role at the Met, where his repertory includes the title character in Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito. Pisaroni, who will sing Caliban in the world premiere of The Enchanted Island later this season, has sung Publio in La Clemenza di Tito and the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Met. Bloom made his Met debut as Masetto in the 2008-09 season and was most recently seen as Truffaldino in the 2011 Met revival of Ariadne auf Naxos. Slovakian bass Kocán will make his Met role debut as the Commendatore; last season at the Met, he sang Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Ferrando in Il Trovatore, and the Grand Inquisitor in the Japan tour performances of Don Carlo.

Beginning February 21, Andrew Davis, who conducted a critically acclaimed revival of Strauss's Capriccio in the Met's 2010-11 season, will lead a new cast in the production. Gerald Finley, who has starred in Met productions of operas by Debussy, Mozart, Puccini, and John Adams, will reprise his acclaimed Don Giovanni, last seen at the Met in the 2004-05 season. Rebeka will continue as Donna Anna, and Isabel Leonard, Matthew Polenzani, and Shenyang will take over the roles of Zerlina, Don Ottavio, and Masetto, which they last sang at the Met in 2008-09. Ellie Dehn will make her Met role debut as Donna Elvira, and John Relyea, who has previously sung Masetto at the Met, will make his Met role debut as Leporello. James Morris will add another role to his extensive Met repertory with his house debut as the Commendatore. Bruce Sledge will make his Met role debut as Don Ottavio on November 7.

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