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THE SECOND SEASON OF GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET PREMIERES IN SPRING 2008 ON PBS.
Since its first GREAT PERFORMANCES telecast in 1977, the Metropolitan Opera has enjoyed a rich history on public television, offering audiences at home the best seats in the house for thrilling masterpieces performed by some of the world's greatest stars. In 2006-07, the Met partnered with GREAT PERFORMANCES for the premiere of GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET, a series of six operas featuring some of the best-known artists in opera today -- Renée Fleming, Nathan Gunn, Plácido Domingo, Anna Netrebko, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, to name only a few. The six performances were first broadcast live in movie theaters across the world in the inaugural season of the Met's groundbreaking and phenomenally successful Live in HD series. This exciting partnership continues in 2007-08, when GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET kicks off with a special prime-time broadcast of Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" starring Alice Coote and Christine Schäfer, followed by seven extraordinary performances from the Met's highly anticipated second season: Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette," starring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón; Verdi's "Macbeth," starring Lado Ataneli; Puccini's "Manon Lescaut," starring Karita Mattila and Marcello Giordani; Britten's "Peter Grimes," starring Anthony Dean Griffey; Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," starring Deborah Voigt and Ben Heppner; Puccini's "La Bohème," starring Angela Gheorghiu and Ramón Vargas; and Donizetti's "La Fille du Régiment," starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez.
The Metropolitan Opera has been one of the world's leading opera companies since its inception in 1883. Originally housed on Broadway
at 39th Street, the Met moved to its current home at Lincoln Center
in 1966. The Met has given the American premieres of some of the most
important works in the repertory, including Wagner's
"Ring" cycle and Puccini's
"Turandot"; its 30 world premieres include Puccini's
"La Fanciulla del West" and more recently, Corigliano's "The Ghosts
of Versailles," Harbison's "The Great Gatsby," and Picker's "An American
Tragedy."
Each season the company stages more than 200 performances of opera
in New York, with more than 800,000 people attending performances
in the opera house and millions more throughout the world experiencing
the Metropolitan Opera on TV and radio and through tours and recordings.
The Met has been under the musical direction of James Levine since 1976, and Peter Gelb became its 16th general manager in the summer of 2006.
Major corporate support for GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET is provided by Toll Brothers.
Top banner photo: The Metropolitan Opera House, exterior at night. (photo by Marty Sohl/The Metropolitan Opera).
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photo credits: Ken Howard/The Metropolitan Opera
Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager.
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