Bits

New York, NY (November 20, 2012) – Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will lead a rare revival of Berlioz’s Les Troyens beginning December 13. Francesca Zambello’s production, critically acclaimed when it premiered at the Met in 2003, will star Marcello Giordani in his house role debut as Aeneas, the central character in the grand tragedy, which travels from the crumbling walls of Troy to the North African kingdom of Carthage. Deborah Voigt will reprise her performance of the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, a role she debuted in the premiere of Zambello’s production, and Susan Graham will sing her first Met performances of Dido, the lovesick queen of Carthage. The cast also features Julie Boulianne as Aeneas’s son, Ascanio; Karen Cargill as Dido’s devoted sister, Anna; Paul Appleby as the young sailor Hylas; Eric Cutler as Dido’s court poet, Iopas; Richard Bernstein as the Trojan priest Pantheus; Dwayne Croft as Cassandra’s fiancé, Coroebus; and Kwangchul Youn as Narbal, Dido’s trusted advisor. The Saturday, January 5 matinee performance of Les Troyens will be transmitted worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, which is now seen in more than 1,900 movie theaters in 64 countries around the world.

Fabio Luisi is only the fourth conductor in Met history to lead Les Troyens, which had its Met premiere in 1973 under the baton of Rafael Kubelik and has also been led by John Nelson and Met Music Director James Levine. This season at the Met, Luisi also conducts the new production of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, a revival of Verdi’s Aida, and three complete cycles of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. His past Met performances include Verdi’s Don Carlo, Simon Boccanegra, Rigoletto, and La Traviata; Richard Strauss’s Die Ägyptische Helena, Elektra, and Ariadne auf Naxos; Puccini’s Turandot, Tosca, and La Bohème; Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni; Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel; Berg’s Lulu; and Massenet’s Manon.