Verdi: Don Carlos
The Met's new production
This new production of Don Carlos promises to be one of the high points of the season, with chief music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting Sir David McVicar's production of the original, five-act French version, and not incidentally, also featuring two international opera stars in the principal female roles: Sonya Yoncheva and Elīna Garanča. In the title role this time around as the heir to the throne attempting to struggle for his lost love and the ideal of freedom will be Matthew Polenzani, one of the New York audience's intimate favourites.
Staging Don Carlos is not only a sensitive and huge challenge measuring the talent of the available singers, the chorus and the creative team: the test applies to the given opera house's level of quality in general. This work of Verdi's demands anyone presenting it to make a short series of preliminary decisions, forcing them to choose which of the numerous versions of the opera based on Schiller's play to use, since it can be mounted in either four or five acts, in French or Italian, and so forth. This production is a significant moment in the history of this opera at the Met, as Don Carlos has never been performed there in the same way it was at its Paris world première. The opera is now being staged in its original form, akin to French grand opéra, by David McVicar, who is always at home working in monumental spaces and depicting great passions. Taking on the parts for deeper male voices will also be some uniformly impressive singers, with Günther Groissböck's King Philippe II and John Relyea's Grand Inquisitor being joined by the young Canadian baritone Étienne Dupuis as he portrays the self-sacrificing Rodrigue, the Marquis of Posa.
The 'Metropolitan Opera Live in HD' transmissions have been made possible through the cooperation of our partner, Cikánek Management.
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Performers:
Élisabeth de Valois.............. Szonja Joncseva
Princess Eboli...................... Elīna Garanča
Don Carlos.......................... Matthew Polenzani
Marquis of Posa.................. Étienne Dupuis
King Philippe II.................... Günther Groissböck
Grand Inquisitor................... John Relyea
Featuring Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra
Creators:
Set designer: Charles Edwards
Costume designer: Brigitte Reiffenstuel
Lighting designer: Adam Silverman
Movement director: Leah Hausman
Director: Sir David McVicar
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
