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By Ben Mattison
11 May 2006
The Metropolitan Opera's weekly live radio broadcasts next season will begin on December 9, 2006, with a production of Mozart's Ideomeno, and run through May 5, 2007, the company announced.
The broadcast's intermission features will be overhauled in keeping with incoming general manager Peter Gelb's focus on reaching new audiences, the Met said. The broadcasts, according to a press release, will now serve as "a virtual backstage pass to the Met," featuring live interviews with artists and production staff and taped features offering behind-the-scenes information. The long-running and much-beloved Opera Quiz will continue.
Highlights include Julie Taymor's abridged, English-language version of Mozart's The Magic Flute (December 30); Bellini's I Puritani with Anna Netrebko (January 6); the world-premiere production of Tan Dun's The First Emperor with Plácido Domingo (January 13); and the first-ever broadcast of Strauss's Die Ägyptische Helena with Deborah Voigt (March 31).
Three new productions will be heard on the series: Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, directed by Bartlett Sher and starring Juan Diego Flórez (March 24); Puccini's Il trittico, directed by Jack O'Brien with Maria Guleghina, Salvatore Licitra, and Stephanie Blythe (April 28); and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, starring Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and directed by Mark Morris.
Other leading singers on the schedule include Karita Mattila (Jenufa, February 17), Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Renée Fleming (Eugene Onegin, February 24), Angela Gheorghiu and Thomas Hampson (Simon Boccanegra, March 3), and Ben Heppner (Andrea Chénier, April 7).
A complete schedule is below. The Met broadcasts, sponsored by the Toll Brothers corporation, are carried on more than 300 stations in the United States and reach 11 million people in 42 countries. Broadcasts begin at 1:30 p.m. ET except where noted. Check local listings.
Plans for the Met's January break have not yet been announced.
2006
December 9: Idomeneo (1:00 p.m.)
December 16: Rigoletto
December 23: Don Carlo (1:00 p.m.)
December 30: The Magic Flute
2007
January 6: I Puritani
January 13: The First Emperor
January 20: TBA
January 27: TBA
February 3: La bohème
February 10: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci
February 17: Jenufa
February 24: Eugene Onegin
March 3: Simon Boccanegra
March 10: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (12:00 p.m.)
March 17: Faust
March 24: Il barbiere di Siviglia
March 31: Die Ägyptische Helena
April 7: Andrea Chénier
April 14: Turandot
April 21: Giulio Cesare
April 28: Il trittico
May 5: Orfeo ed Euridice
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