Metropolitan Opera Announces 2012-2013 Season

The Metropolitan Opera has announced its 2012-2013 season, which will include new productions directed by Tony Award winners Bartlett Sher and Michael Mayer.

Sher will direct the opening night production on September 24 of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, to be conducted by Maurizio Benini, and starring Anna Netrebko and Matthew Polenzani.

Mayer will direct a new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto (January 28), which will star Željko Lu?i?, Diana Damrau, and Piotr Beczala, and conducted by Michele Mariotti.

The Met will also offer five other new productions include Robert Lepage’s The Tempest, written by Thomas Ades — who will also conduct the work — and starring Simon Keenlyside as Prospero (October 23); David Aleden’s production of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, conducted by Fabio Luisi and starring Karita Mattila, Marcelo Álvarez, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky (November 8); the company’s first-ever production of Donizetti’s <Maria Stuarda, directed by David McVicar, starring Joyce DiDonato and Elza van den Heever, and conducted by Maurizo Benini (December 31); François Girard’s new staging of Wagner’s Parsifal, conducted by Daniele Gatti and starring Jonas Kaufmann, Katarina Dalayman, Peter Mattei, and René Pape (February 15); and McVicar’s production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, conducted by Harry Bicket and starring David Daniels and Natalie Dessay (April 4).

In addition, the company will present 21 revivals, including three complete “Ring Cycles,” and productions of Turnadot, Carmen, Il Trovatore, Otello, and La Traviata, among others.

Artists who will appear this season will include Stephanie Blythe, Olga Borodina, Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming, Juan Diego Florez, Susan Graham,Thomas Hampson, Jay Hunter Morris, Eric Owens, Patricia Racette, Alek Shrader, and Deborah Voigt.

For more information, visit www.metopera.org.