Doyle, Noble, Zimmerman, et al. to Direct at the Metropolitan Opera

Tony Award-winning directors John Doyle and Mary Zimmerman will be among the theater-based artists working next year at the Metropolitan Opera.

Zimmerman, the Chicago-based director who won a Tony for Metamorphoses, will direct a new production of Donizetti’s Lucia de Lammermoor, with Natalie Dessay in the title role, which will open the Met’s 2007-2008 season on September 24.
That performance, to be conducted by the Met’s music director, James Levine, will be relayed live to Times Square.

Doyle, a Tony-winner for the 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd and the director of the current revival of Company, will helm Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, beginning February 28. The production will star Anthony Dean Griffey — whom Doyle has just directed in the Los Angeles Opera’s current production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, starring Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone — in the title role.

In addition, Adrian Noble, the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, will direct a new production of Verdi’s Macbeth opening on October 22; Richard Jones, the noted opera director who helmed Broadway’s Titanic, will direct an English language-version of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel beginning on December 24; and Phelim McDermot, the co-leader of London-based theater troupe Improbable, will direct Philip Glass’ 1980 opera Satyagraha, opening on April 11, 2008.

The Met also announced that it will bring back its last season opener, Anthony Minghella’s acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly, this time with Patricia Racette and Roberto Alagna in the leads; as well as Tony Award nominee Bartlett Sher’s production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia and a revised version of Tan Dun’s new opera The First Emperor, which opened last year to mixed reviews.

Among the major performers to be seen at the Met this season: Placido Domingo will star in a new production of Gluck’s Ipheginie en Tauide; Renee Fleming will perform in both Verdi’s La Traviata and Otello; Juan Diego Florez will appear opposite Dessay in Donizetti’s La Fille Du Regiment; Deborah Voigt will star as the heroine of Tristan und Isolde; Anna Netrebko will star in Romeo et Juliette; Angela Gheorghiu will play Mimi in La Boheme, Bryn Terfel will take on the title role of Le Nozze di Figaro; and Diana Damrau will play Pamina and the Queen of the Night in different performances of Die Zauberflote.

For more information, visit www.metopera.org.