Simon Keenlyside Withdraws from Metropolitan Opera's DON CARLO

Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Luca Salsi will sing the role of Rodrigo in this season's performances of Verdi's Don Carlo, replacing Simon Keenlyside, who has withdrawn from the run due to illness.

Hvorostovsky will sing Rodrigo, one of his most acclaimed roles, on March 30, April 2, 6, 11 matinee, 18 matinee, and 25. Salsi will sing his first-ever performances of Rodrigo on April 15 and 22.

Hvorostovsky has sung the role of Rodrigo 24 times with the Met between 2001 and 2013. The heroic Count of Posa is among the numerous Verdi baritone roles he has performed with the company, a list that also includes the title roles in Rigoletto and Simon Boccanegra, Germont in La Traviata, Don Carlo in Ernani, Count di Luna in Il Trovatore, and Anckarström in Un Ballo in Maschera, a role he will reprise at the Met this April and May.

Earlier this season, Salsi sang the title role in Rossini's Guglielmo Tell to critical acclaim with the Teatro Regio Torino at Carnegie Hall. He sings frequently under the baton of Riccardo Muti, with whom he has recently performed the title roles in Verdi's Macbeth and Nabucco; Muti will conduct him as Don Carlo in Verdi's Ernani at the Salzburg Festival this summer. Salsi made his Met debut as Sharpless in Puccini's Madama Butterfly in 2007. This March and April, he also sings his first Met performances of Enrico in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts this season's performances of Don Carlo, which also star Yonghoon Lee and Ricardo Tamura in the title role, Barbara Frittoli and Lianna Haroutounian (in her Met debut) as Elisabeth de Valois, Ekaterina Gubanova and Nadia Krasteva (in her Met debut) as Eboli, Ferruccio Furlanetto as Philip II, and James Morris as the Grand Inquisitor.