Met Music Director James Levine to Conduct Berg's WOZZECK, Begin. 3/6

Met Music Director James Levine will conduct a revival of Berg's Wozzeck, opening March 6 and starring Thomas Hampson and Deborah Voigt in their first-ever performances of the leading roles, Wozzeck and Marie. Levine has led 43 performances of Berg's dark study of a man crushed by society-more than any other conductor in Met history. This season's revival will also star Simon O'Neill as the Drum-Major, Peter Hoare as the Captain, and English bass Clive Bayley as the Doctor.

James Levine has conducted an unparalleled 2,456 Met performances over the course of his 43-year Met career, including this season's revival of Mozart's Così fan tutte (returning to the stage in April) and new production of Verdi's Falstaff. He has championed both of Berg's operas at the Met, also conducting 30 performances of Lulu, including its 1977 Met premiere. Among the many other highlights of his work with the company are the first-ever Met performances of Mozart's Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito; Gershwin's Porgy and Bess; Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex; Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani, I Lombardi and Stiffelio; Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny; Schoenberg's Erwartung and Moses und Aron; Rossini's La Cenerentola; and Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, as well as the world premieres of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and John Harbison's The Great Gatsby.

This season's performances will mark Thomas Hampson's role debut as Wozzeck. His recent performances at the Met have included many Verdi baritone roles, specifically Iago in Otello, the title role in Macbeth, Giorgio Germont in La Traviata, Rodrigo in Don Carlo, the title role in Simon Boccanegra, and Don Carlo in Ernani. His extensive repertory with the company also includes numerous Mozart roles, most frequently the title character in Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte; the Wagner roles of Amfortas in Parsifal and Wolfram in Tannhäuser; and the title roles in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Britten's Billy Budd, Busoni's Doktor Faust, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and Massenet's Werther.

Deborah Voigt makes her role debut as Marie. She has sung nearly 250 performances with the Met in a varied repertory that has encompassed major Wagner roles, including Brünnhilde and Sieglinde in Der Ring des Nibelungen, Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer, Elsa in Lohengrin, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, and Isolde in Tristan und Isolde; Richard Strauss roles, such as the title characters in Die Ägyptische Helena and Ariadne auf Naxos, the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Chrysothemis in Elektra; and Verdi heroines like Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera, Leonora in La Forza del Destino, and the title role in Aida. Last season at the Met, she sang Brünnhilde in the Ring cycle and Cassandra in a revival of Berlioz's Les Troyens.

Simon O'Neill made his Met debut in 2006 as the High Priest in Idomeneo and sang Siegmund in Die Walküre with the company in 2008 and 2013. Peter Hoare made his Met debut in 2009, singing the role of Shapkin in the company premiere of Janá?ek's From the House of the Dead. In recent seasons, Clive Bayley has sung the Doctor with the Bavarian State Opera and Welsh National Opera.

The March 6 opening performance of Wozzeck will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS XM Channel 74, as will the performance on March 22. The March 6 performance will also be streamed live on the Met's website, www.metopera.org.

The March 22 matinee performance will be broadcast live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.

For more information on this season's performances of Wozzeck, please visit the Met's website at http://www.metopera.org.

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