James Morris News

Seattle Theatre Group (STG) presents Erin McCarley, with special guest Landon Pigg, on Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 9:00pm at the High Dive.

Seattle Theatre Group (STG) presents Erin McCarley, with special guest Landon Pigg, on Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 9:00pm at the High Dive.

The Metropolitan Opera celebrates its 125th anniversary year with a unique gala performance on March 15, 2009 at 6:00 p.m., featuring Met stars in recreations of historic classic productions and high points in the company's past. Music Director James Levine conducts the evening of 26 staged scenes that, with the use of projections, and scenic and costume recreations, will evoke the Met's illustrious history.

Ren? Pape has withdrawn from the Met's 125th Anniversary Gala on Sunday, March 15, due to illness. The resulting program changes are: John Tomlinson will sing the Death Scene from Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, replacing Pape. James Morris will sing Wotan in the final scene of Wagner's Das Rheingold, replacing Pape.

Eight new productions, four of which are company premieres, will highlight the Metropolitan Opera's 2009-10 season. General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine jointly announced plans that include: the Met premieres of Rossini's Armida, Verdi's Attila, Jan?ček's From the House of the Dead, and Shostakovich's The Nose; new productions of Bizet's Carmen, Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Thomas's Hamlet, and Puccini's Tosca; and 18 revivals from the company's repertory. The season is the first to be entirely planned under Gelb's leadership, in collaboration with Levine (the past three seasons were planned before Gelb became General Manager in 2006-07 but included some productions, repertoire, and casting changes made by Gelb).

Tchaikovsky's romantic masterpiece Eugene Onegin, based on the Pushkin poem, returns to the Met on Friday, January 30, with a superb international cast. American baritone Thomas Hampson returns to the role of Onegin, the haughty aristocrat who acknowledges love too late, opposite the Finnish soprano Karita Mattila making her Met role debut as Tatiana, who grows from a love-struck young girl to an aristocratic woman. Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk is her sister, Olga; Polish tenor Piotr Beczala is Lenski, Onegin's doomed friend; and Russian bass Sergei Aleksashkin is Gremin, the elderly prince who marries Tatiana. Aleksashkin will sing the first two performances and American bass James Morris, taking on the role for the first time at the Met, does the remainder of the run. Czech maestro Jiř? Bĕlohl?vek conducts all performances, through February 21. The production is by Robert Carsen, sets and costumes are by Michael Levine, Jean Kalman is the lighting designer, and the choreographer is Serge Bennathan.

Today, November 29, the Metropolitan Opera Radio Saturday Matinee Broadcasts launches its 78th season of world-class opera heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network with the network premiere of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust.

The Metropolitan Opera celebrates its 125th anniversary year with a unique gala performance on March 15, 2009 at 6:00 p.m., featuring Met stars in recreations of historic classic productions and high points in the company's past. Music Director James Levine conducts the evening of 26 staged scenes that, with the use of projections, and scenic and costume recreations, will evoke the Met's illustrious history.

On November 29, the Metropolitan Opera Radio Saturday Matinee Broadcasts launches its 78th season of world-class opera heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network with the network premiere of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust.

The Metropolitan Opera will perform Verdi's Requiem Mass on Thursday, September 18 at 5:00 p.m. in commemoration of the first anniversary of the death of Luciano Pavarotti, who died on September 6, 2007.

Ildar Abdrazakov will be the bass soloist for the Verdi Requiem tribute to Luciano Pavarotti at the Metropolitan Opera on September 18, at 5 p.m. He replaces James Morris, who is ill.

The Metropolitan Opera will perform Verdi's Requiem Mass on Thursday, September 18 at 5:00 p.m. in commemoration of the first anniversary of the death of Luciano Pavarotti, who died on September 6, 2007.

Esteemed conductor Lorin Maazel, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, will return to the Met Radio Broadcasts after a 45 year absence with Wagner's Die Walküre, which will be broadcast live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 12:30 pm EST on February 2, 2008. Maestro Maazel conducts at the Met this season for the first time since his last appearance with the company in 1963. He leads a superb cast which includes sopranos Lisa Gasteen as Brünnhilde (in her Network Broadcast debut) and Deborah Voigt as Sieglinde, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as Fricka, Clifton Forbis as Siegmund, Mikhail Petrenko as Hunding, and James Morris as Wotan.