Ambroise Thomas

Hamlet

CONDUCTOR Opera in five acts

Louis Langrée Libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier,
PRODUCTION based on the play by William Shakespeare
Patrice Caurier
Moshe Leiser
Saturday, March 27, 2010, 1:00–4:20 pm
SET DESIGNER
Christian Fenouillat
New Production
COSTUME DESIGNER
Agostino Cavalca
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Christophe Forey

This production of Hamlet was made possible

by a generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. Wilmer J.
Thomas, Jr.

GENERAL MANAGER
Peter Gelb

MUSIC DIRECTOR Production owned by the Grand Théâtre

James Levine de Gèneve
 2009–10 Season

The 13th Metropolitan Opera performance of

Simon Keenlyside’s
performance is Ambroise Thomas’s
underwritten by
the Annenberg
Principal Artist
Fund.
Hamlet
This performance
is being
broadcast conductor
live over The Louis Langrée
Toll Brothers–
Metropolitan in order of vocal appearance
Opera
International Claudius, king of Ghost of Hamlet’s father
Radio Network, Denmark David Pittsinger
sponsored by James Morris
Toll Brothers, Polonius, Ophélie’s father
America’s luxury Gertrude, queen and Maxim Mikhailov
homebuilder ,
® consort of Claudius
with generous Jennifer Larmore Gravediggers
long-term Richard Bernstein
support from Prince Hamlet, Mark Schowalter
Gertrude’s son
The Annenberg
Simon Keenlyside Player King
Foundation, the
Peter Richards
Vincent A. Stabile Ophélie
Endowment for Marlis Petersen Player Queen
Broadcast Media, Joshua Wynter
and contributions Laërte, Ophélie’s
from listeners brother Player Villain
worldwide. Toby Spence Christian Rozakis

This performance is Marcellus

also being broadcast Matthew Plenk *
live on Metropolitan
Opera Radio on Horatio
SIRIUS channel 78 Liam Bonner
and XM channel 79.

Saturday, March 27, 2010, 1:00–4:20 pm

 This afternoon’s performance is being transmitted
live in high definition to movie theaters worldwide.

The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant

from its founding sponsor, the Neubauer Family Foundation.

Bloomberg is the global corporate sponsor of The Met: Live in HD.

Chorus Master Donald Palumbo

Musical Preparation Dennis Giauque, Steven Eldredge,
Derrick Inouye, Pierre Vallet, and Carrie-Ann Matheson
Assistant Stage Directors Gregory Anthony Fortner,
Jonathon Loy, and Louisa Muller
Stage Band Conductor Gregory Buchalter
Prompter Carrie-Ann Matheson
Met Titles J.D. McClatchy
Scenery, properties, and electrical props constructed and
painted in Shops of the Grand Théâtre de Gèneve
Costumes constructed by Shops of the Grand Théâtre de
Gèneve and Metropolitan Opera Costume Shop
Selected costumes by the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona;
and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Wigs by Metropolitan Opera Wig Department

Ambroise Thomas’s “Hélas! Dieu m’épargne la honte,” Duet, No. 8,

from Hamlet, with original orchestration newly discovered and edited
by Hugh MacDonald, is used by arrangement with European American
Music Distributors LLC, sole U.S. and Canadian agent for Baerenreiter,
publisher and copyright owner.

Materials for Hamlet were supplied by Editions Heugel, the original

publisher, represented in the United States by Alphonse Leduc-Robert
King, Inc.

This performance is made possible in part by public funds from the

New York State Council on the Arts.

Before the performance begins, please switch off cell phones and
other electronic devices.

This production uses cannon sound effects.

Yamaha is the official piano
of the Metropolitan Opera.

Latecomers will not be

admitted during the
performance.
Met Titles
* Member of the
Met Titles are available for this performance in English, German, and
Lindemann Young Artist
Development Program Spanish. To activate, press the red button to the right of the screen in
front of your seat and follow the instructions provided. To turn off the
display, press the red button once again. If you have questions please
Visit metopera.org ask an usher at intermission.
 Synopsis

Denmark

Act I
scene 1 Inside Elsinore Castle
scene 2 Night, the ramparts of the castle

Act II
scene 1 Inside Elsinore Castle
scene 2 The banquet hall

Intermission
Act III
Inside Elsinore Castle

Act IV
Ophélie’s apartment

Act V
In a cemetery

Act I
Two months after the death of King Hamlet, fanfares announce the marriage
of his brother and successor Claudius to the widowed queen, Gertrude.
Hamlet, prince of Denmark and son of the former king, remains apart from
the celebration. He is consumed by remorse and self-doubt and vehemently
disapproves of his mother’s new marriage so soon after his father’s death. His
thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of Ophélie, the daughter of the Lord
Chamberlain, Polonius. She is in love with Hamlet and upset by rumors that he
intends to leave the court. He assures her that he still loves her (Duet: “Doute
de la lumière”). Laërte, Ophélie’s brother, arrives. He is being sent on a mission
to Norway and entrusts his sister to Hamlet’s care. The prince refuses to join the
others for the wedding banquet. His friend Horatio appears to tell Hamlet that
his father’s ghost has been seen.
At night, alone on the ramparts of the castle, Hamlet meets the ghost, who
tells his son that he was poisoned by Claudius, and demands vengeance for his
murder. Hamlet swears to obey.

Act II
Ophélie is distressed by Hamlet’s indifference (“Sa main depuis hier”). She
would like to leave the court, but Gertrude thinks she can help cure the prince’s
melancholy. Claudius, who also has noticed Hamlet’s disturbing behavior,

30
arrives. Gertrude wonders if her son suspects the real cause of the former king’s
death but Claudius assures her that he is merely losing his mind. The prince
enters, rebuffs Claudius for addressing him as his son, and announces that he
has arranged for a play to be performed that evening. When the players arrive
Hamlet instructs them to perform “The Murder of Gonzago.” He hopes that
the story of a murder by poisoning will prompt a confession from the king and
queen. In order not to arouse suspicion, he plays the fool and invites the actors
to drink (“Ô vin, dissipe la tristesse”).
The court assembles to watch the play. It has the desired effect: Claudius
erupts in anger as the murderer of the story gains the crown. Hamlet hides his
true feelings by feigning madness, snatching the crown from the king’s head, to
the horror of everyone present.

Act III
Hamlet reflects on life and death: he could have killed the king but did not (“Être
ou ne pas être”). He hides as the king enters. Claudius is racked with remorse
and calls on his dead brother to intercede for him with God (“Je t’implore, ô
mon frère”). Polonius appears, calming the king, and the two leave. Hamlet
is shocked to discover that Polonius was an accomplice in the murder. When
Ophélie enters with Gertrude, he roughly rejects the girl’s advances and urges
her to enter a convent, declaring that he no longer loves her and will not marry
her. Gertrude wonders what really prompted Hamlet’s change of heart. Ophélie
leaves in tears, and Hamlet confronts his mother with her crime. She begs for
mercy (Duet: “Pardonne, hélas! ta voix m’accable”). At that moment the ghost
reappears and reminds Hamlet that it is not up to him to judge his mother.
Gertrude, who cannot see the apparition, believes that her fears are confirmed:
Hamlet has gone mad.

Act IV
Ophélie has lost her senses. She imagines herself to be married to Hamlet
and recalls the tale of a water nymph who lures away wandering men (“Pâle et
blonde dort sous l’eau profonde”). She kills herself.

Act V
In a cemetery, two gravediggers discuss the inevitably of death. Hamlet arrives.
Unaware of Ophélie’s death, he reproaches himself for the way he treated her
and the madness his behavior has provoked (“Comme une pâle fleur”). Laërte
appears, demanding vengeance, and the two men duel. Hamlet is wounded
and kills Laërte. When the funeral cortège with Ophélie’s body approaches,
Hamlet, distraught to discover she is dead, kneels by her bier. He then kills
Claudius and dies.

Visit metopera.org 31
 In Focus

Ambroise Thomas

Hamlet
Premiere: Opéra, Paris, 1868
Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, the most successful of a number of operatic
adaptations of Shakespeare’s towering tragedy, is a prime example of the grand
opera tradition that flourished in Paris in the 19th century (reaching its climax
between 1830 and 1850). This operatic genre enthralled audiences with large-
scale works in which grand choruses, elaborate ensembles, and magnificent
staging provided the framework for sensational vocal solos. Although many
details of Shakespeare’s play were unavoidably altered or omitted in the opera,
the story of a prince whose resolve to murder his stepfather is frozen by doubt and
conflicting impulses translated well to the musical stage. Besides the spectacle,
Thomas also added deeper dramatic layers. Ophélie’s madness provided him
with an opportunity to create one of the most riveting scenes for coloratura
soprano, and the music for the title character maintains a dramatic intensity
that made the role a favorite vehicle for the leading baritones of the time. Like
many other works of the grand opera tradition, Hamlet faced a sudden decline
in popularity early in the 20th century, as the public taste moved toward less
conventional structures for music dramas. The opera has seen a resurgence in
public and critical esteem in recent decades as audiences become less bound
by historic concerns about operatic realism.

The Creators
Ambroise Thomas (1811–1896) achieved success in opera with Mignon (based
on Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 1866) and Hamlet. He was also
highly regarded as a teacher and as the director of the Paris Conservatory, where
his students included Jules Massenet and César Franck. The libretto for Hamlet
was written by Michel Carré (1822–1872) and Jules Barbier (1825–1901), a prolific
team of dramatists whose other operatic collaborations include Gounod’s Faust
and Roméo et Juliette and Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. The opera is,
of course, based on the play by William Shakespeare (1564–1616), whose works
have inspired generations of artists for the last four centuries.

The Setting
The opera, like Shakespeare’s tragedy, is set in Denmark, in the royal castle of
Elsinore. The Met’s production places it in an unspecified era.

32
The Music
The formal conventions of 19th-century grand opera in Paris were more or less
inflexible, and Thomas’s score fulfills the requirements with skill and originality.
Works of this kind, for example, often featured a drinking song. The immediate,
catchy appeal of the one Hamlet sings in Act II works convincingly within the
drama, since the character, at this point, is feigning conviviality. The rich and
beautiful septet at the end of the same act acknowledges the Paris Opéra’s
tradition of maintaining a deep roster of the world’s best singers. A mad scene
for the leading soprano was another popular 19th-century tradition (not just
in grand opera) to provide the diva with a tour-de-force showpiece. Ophélie’s
extended aria in Act IV is one of the most remarkable and difficult examples.
Some of the other vocal solos, while less spectacular, are also highly challenging
and demand the refined technique of French romantic singing, including
Getrude’s Act II “Dans son regard plus sombre” and Hamlet’s Act V lament
for Ophélie, “Comme un pale fleur.” Elsewhere, Thomas adds entirely original
touches: the music for brass accompanying Hamlet’s meeting with his father’s
ghost is otherworldly and effective; in the macabre music for the pantomime
play in Act II the composer makes use of the unfamiliar sound of the recently
invented saxophone. Yet for all the flourish of the orchestral writing and the
great solos, the music for Hamlet is also insightfully dramatic. The extended duet
scene between Hamlet and his mother—rhythmically intense and harmonically
dense—has long been considered a highlight of the opera, just as riveting as
the more famous mad scene.

Hamlet at the Met

Hamlet first appeared at the Met in its inaugural 1883–84 season, on tour in
Cincinnati, sung in Italian and featuring the show-stopping coloratura of soprano
Marcella Sembrich. It received only eight more performances over the following
13 years (both in French and Italian), with such stars as Nellie Melba and Emma
Calvé appearing as Ophélie. Until this season’s new production by Patrice Caurier
and Moshe Leiser, the opera had not been seen at the Met since 1897.

EXTENDED BOX OFFICE HOURS!

The Met Box Office is now open later on performance days.
Monday–Saturday: 10 am through the first intermission of the evening
performance
Sunday: noon to 6 pm
The Box Office closes at 8 pm on non-performance evenings or on evenings
with no intermission.

Visit metopera.org 33
 Program Note

I
n English-speaking countries it is generally as dangerous to tamper with
Shakespeare as it is to fiddle with Goethe in Germany. But no one seems
to have informed the French of this. The second half of the 19th century
saw French composers turning the sacred canon of Shakespeare and Goethe
into operas right and left. Faust, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, The Sorrows
of Young Werther, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, and, most
egregiously (from the point of view of English speakers), Hamlet all became
popular French operas.
To this day German opera houses often bill Gounod’s Faust as Marguerite, in
deference to Goethe’s original. If Ambroise Thomas had entitled his 1868 opera
Ophélie rather than Hamlet, perhaps it might not have been so excoriated by
the critics—so much so that the Met did not stage Thomas’s perfectly marvelous
opera during the entire 20th century.
Hamlet was performed at the Met during its opening season, in Italian, and
later in the original French. But despite starry casts—which included Marcella
Sembrich, Emma Calvé, and Nellie Melba as Ophélie, Giuseppe Kaschmann
and Jean Lassalle in the title role, and Edouard de Reszke and Pol Plançon as
Claudius—it disappeared after nine performances. Ophélie’s mad scene was
sometimes heard, shorn from the rest of the opera—most memorably, perhaps,
when the company was on tour in Chicago in 1894 and Melba sang it after a
complete performance of Rigoletto, leaving one to wonder at the reactions of
her baritone and tenor co-stars.
The opinion of Hamlet expressed by W. J. Henderson, dean of New York’s
music critics during the company’s first 50 years, was typical. “No one can really
take it very seriously,” he sniffed. On another occasion he wrote, “No artist,
however talented, can present a clear and symmetrical impersonation of either
Hamlet or Ophelia as set forth in the opera.” And he once referred to the role of
Hamlet as “the melancholy Dane, who in opera, however, is not too melancholy
to sing a good drinking song.”
But turning up one’s nose at Hamlet the opera merely because it is not Hamlet
the play makes as much sense as sneering at a lobster soufflé just because it is
not roast beef. Hamlet the opera offers a veritable banquet of delights if one
will only approach it for what it is—a wonderful example of French grand opera,
filled with enchanting melodies and dramatic scenes loaded with contrasts, all
heightened by innovative orchestration and propelled by interesting characters
championed by some of the best singing actors of all time.
When Thomas’s librettists, Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, set to work on
Hamlet, the main French translation of the play was still the one made in 1769
by Jean-François Ducis. Like all other French “translations” of the time, it was
more a version of the play, smoothing out Shakespeare’s “vulgar” language
and dropping scenes that were considered violent or otherwise distasteful—in

34
short, “refining” Shakespeare for the more “elevated” tastes of the French. It
was Victor Hugo’s son, Françoise-Victor, who made the first true translations of
Shakespeare into French, his multivolume work first being published in 1859.
French opera did not aim to bring all of Shakespeare’s complexity and
Elizabethan sense of drama to its public. It had its own cultural norms and
expectations within which the librettists and composer were expected to work.
For Carré and Barbier to not only show Ophélie’s death on stage, but to devote
most of Act IV to it, raised eyebrows at the time. The scene with the gravediggers
that opens Act V was considered quite shocking by Parisian audiences in 1868,
which also expected their Hamlet to live at the end of the opera, as he did
when French actors played him on stage. Thomas knew the happy ending for
his opera would cause problems in England, and he wrote what is known as
the Covent Garden ending, in which Hamlet dies. In the new Met production, a
version is used that incorporates sections of both the original and the Covent
Garden versions, with a tragic ending.
Today Thomas is one of the least known of the major 19th-century French
composers, but he was not only extraordinarily successful in his day, he was
quite influential, largely as the director of the Paris Conservatory. Charles Louis
Ambroise Thomas was born into a musical family in Metz on August 5, 1811. His
father taught violin, singing, and piano, his mother sang, and an older brother
played cello in Parisian orchestras. At the age of 17, Ambroise enrolled at the
Conservatory.
His first real operatic triumph was in 1849 with Le Caïd. The 1850 Le Songe
d’une nuit d’été, despite its title, is not a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
but an opera in which Shakespeare himself appears as a character, along with
Queen Elizabeth I and Sir John Falstaff. But by far Thomas’s most successful
opera was Mignon (1866), given more than one thousand times by the Opéra
Comique during the composer’s lifetime. It was followed by Hamlet two years
later at the Opéra.
Hamlet’s complex, challenging title role was originally conceived for a tenor,
but when the great singing actor Jean-Baptiste Faure became available, Thomas
reworked the part for baritone. The young Swedish soprano Christine Nilsson
was the first Ophélie, driving all of Paris into a delirium with her star-making
performance. (Fifteen years later she would open the brand new Metropolitan
Opera House on Broadway and 39th Street in another French opera, Faust.) The
popular Pauline Gueymard-Lauters created the role of Gertrude.
Hamlet is not only a ravishingly beautiful opera, it’s also vividly dramatic.
In Hamlet’s encounter with the Ghost in Act I, for example, the orchestration
brilliantly conveys a sense of the supernatural, and interrupting the scene with
the sounds of the festivities coming from inside the castle only heightens the
effect. Thomas’s unusual use of the saxophone during the scene with the mimes

35
 Program Note continued

is another example of his command of orchestral forces. The composer also

reminds us of the genuine love Hamlet feels for Ophélie in the opera: he repeats
the haunting melody of their Act I duet that accompanies Hamlet’s words
“Doubt the light, if you will, but never doubt my love” not only in Act II but,
most poignantly, in Ophélie’s death scene. Hamlet’s drinking song is partially
reprised during the Act II finale, highlighting the character’s feigned madness
after accusing Claudius of murder. The third act, beginning with the operatic
version of “To be or not to be” and ending with the brilliant confrontation scene
between Hamlet and his mother, is one of the gems in all of French opera.
It would not be going too far to say that every single aria and scene in this
opera makes a considerable effect when performed by singers with the right
voice, technique, and understanding of French style. This new Met production
should allow audiences to see Hamlet for what it is: a great French opera and a
sensational evening in the theater. —Paul Thomason

36 Visit metopera.org
A Note from the Directors

O
pera should serve two gods: the god of music and the god of theater.
In an opera like Hamlet (as with all our opera projects) what we are
trying to achieve is to use the means of music and theater to witness
our human condition.
This can be hard on the singers, because it is not only their vocal beauty we
are after, but vocal truth. This is why the conductor has the immense responsibility
of not making mere sound, but music. And the directors must not just make
images, but theater. In other words: relationships and meaning.
A night at the opera should be an exciting moment, as real human beings
surround you with their vibrating sound (without electronic devices!) so that
you can experience, feel, and think about (in the case of Hamlet) the wounds,
torments, and also the desperate humor of the dark prince. He is at once a
victim of madness and someone who causes madness in others. The opera is
also about how difficult it can be to live up to one’s father’s expectations. It tells
us that the idea of revenge inevitably kills more than the presumed killer: it dries
up love and pushes friends away, in a spiraling, certain death.
Of course, at this performance, you will not hear all of Shakespeare’s words.
This is a 19th-century opera, by a 19th-century French composer and librettist.
But listen, for example, to how honest Thomas’s music writing is for the famous
“To be or not be.” This is not bombastic music to impress audiences; this is
poignant music-making by a composer trying with very simple but heartfelt
ways to take us into the depths of Hamlet’s soul.
And that is exactly what we, too, have tried to do. —Moshe Leiser & Patrice
Caurier

Visit metopera.org 37
 The Cast and Creative Team

Louis Langrée
conductor (mulhouse, france)

this season Hamlet at the Met, Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and for his

debut at La Scala, André Messager’s Fortunio at Paris’s Opéra Comique, and concerts with the
Houston and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Deutsche
Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.
met appearances Iphigénie en Tauride (debut, 2007) and Don Giovanni.

career highlights He has been music director of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival since

2002 and was music director of the Orchestre de Picardie from 1993 to 1998, the Lyon Opera
from 1998 to 2000, and the Liège Philharmonic from 2001 to 2006. He has also performed with
orchestras in Milan, Dallas, Baltimore, Paris, and Detroit. He regularly conducts period instrument
orchestras that include the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Concerto Köln, Orchestre
des Champs-Elysées, and Le Concert d’Astrée. Festival appearances include performances at
Spoleto, Orange, Vienna, and London’s BBC Proms.

Patrice Caurier (right)

and Moshe Leiser (left)
directors

this season Hamlet for their Met debuts, Le Comte Ory and the world premiere of Marc-André
Dalbavie’s Gesualdo in Zurich, and The Makropulos Case with the Nantes Angers Opera.
career highlights Recent works for the French directors include Mosè in Egitto and Halévy’s Clari in

Zurich; Jenu° fa, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Tosca, and Bluebeard’s Castle for Angers
Nantes Opera; La Cenerentola, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Il Turco in Italia, Hamlet, Madama Butterfly,
and Hansel and Gretel for Covent Garden; Eugene Onegin for St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre;
and Wagner’s Ring cycle for the Geneva Opera. Together, the French directors have created
more than 80 opera productions for theaters that include Paris’s Châtelet, Geneva’s Grand
Théâtre, Welsh National Opera, and Charleston’s Spoleto Festival. Their movie of L’Enfant et les
Sortilèges was awarded Best Musical Movie at the Cannes Midem Festival. Their production of
Mazeppa for Welsh National Opera received a BAFTA Award for Best Opera Production in the
UK. They received the French Critics Award for Best Opera Production for Jenu° fa in Nantes.

Christian Fenouillat
set designer (paris , france)

Hamlet for his Met debut.

this season

He studied architecture in Grenoble and began designing for the theater in

career highlights

1975. He works regularly with directors such as Bruno Boëglin, Claudia Stavisky, Christophe

38
Perton, Patrice Caurier, and Moshe Leiser. Among his designs for opera are Hansel and Gretel,
La Cenerentola, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Il Turco in Italia (Covent Garden); Fidelio and Orfeo ed
Euridice (Welsh National Opera); I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Lisbon); Armida and La Clemenza di
Tito (Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées); Wozzeck, Hamlet, Der Rosenkavalier, and Wagner’s
Ring cycle (Geneva); Jenu° fa, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Charleston’s Spoleto
Festival); Beethoven’s Leonore, La Traviata, and The Nose (Lausanne); Tosca and Bluebeard’s
Castle (Nantes); Madama Butterfly and Hamlet (Covent Garden and Barcelona); Ariane et Barbe-
Bleue and Lucie de Lammermoor (Lyon); and Pelléas et Mélisande (Bilbao).

Agostino Cavalca
costume designer (paris , france)

this season Hamlet for his Met debut, Mosè in Egitto for the Zurich Opera, Carmen for the
Welsh National Opera, Il Turco in Italia at Covent Garden, and The Makropulos Case in Nantes
and Angers.
career highlights Originally from Italy, since 1980 he has lived in Paris, where he has designed

costumes for many productions of classical works, including Goethe, Racine, Molière, Marivaux,
and Shakespeare, in addition to numerous works by contemporary authors. His work in opera
includes Mozart’s Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gebots, Weill and Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera,
Weber’s Euryanthe, and Rossini’s Le Comte Ory at the Aix-en-Provence Festival; Verdi’s Luisa
Miller in Montpellier and Liège; and Roméo et Juliette in Lyon. He has worked with directors
Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser since 1995, designing costumes for their productions seen at
St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, the Paris Opera, Paris’s Châtelet, Welsh National Opera, and
Covent Garden, among others.

Christophe Forey
lighting designer (besançon, france)

this season Hamlet for his Met debut.

career highlights With Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier he has designed lighting for Fidelio,
Orfeo ed Euridice (Welsh National Opera); Der Rosenkavalier, Pelléas et Mélisande, Wagner’s
Ring cycle, and Don Carlo (Geneva); Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Leonore, and The
Nose (Lausanne); Wozzeck and Jenu° fa (Charleston’s Spoleto Festival); Bluebeard’s Castle and
Tosca (Nantes); Madama Butterfly, La Cenerentola, Il Turco in Italia, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Hansel
and Gretel (Covent Garden); and Mosè in Egitto and Halévy’s Clari (Zurich). He has also worked
with Silviu Purcarete (Parsifal for Scottish Opera), Günter Krämer (Ariadne auf Naxos in Lyon),
Bruno Boëglin (Bernard-Marie Koltès’s Roberto Zucco in Lyon and Paris), Jean-Marc Bourg
(Emmanuel Darley’s Être Humain in Montpellier and Christian Prigent’s Une Phrase pour ma
Mère in Avignon), and Lucinda Childs (Orfeo ed Euridice, The Miraculous Mandarin, Oedipus
Rex, and Songs from Before in Edinburgh, Strasbourg, and Paris).

39
 The Cast and Creative Team continued

Jennifer Larmore
mezzo - soprano ( atlanta , georgia )

this season Gertrude in Hamlet at the Met, Countess Geschwitz in Lulu in Madrid and at Paris’s
Bastille Opera, Dulcinée in Massenet’s Don Quichotte, Kostelnička in Jenu° fa with the Deutsche
Oper Berlin, and Miss Jessel in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the Theater an der Wien.
met appearances Elizabeth Griffiths in the world premiere of Picker’s An American Tragedy,

Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri, the
title role of Giulio Cesare, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Giulietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and
Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia (debut, 1995).
career highlights She made her professional debut in 1986 with the Nice Opera and that year

sang her first Rosina in Strasbourg. Since that time she has appeared as Rosina more than
500 times while appearing in dozens of other leading roles in opera houses throughout Europe
and South America.

Marlis Petersen
soprano (sindelfingen, germany)

this season Ophélie in Hamlet and the title role of Lulu at the Met, the title role in the world
premiere of Aribert Reimann’s Medea at the Vienna State Opera, Aphrodite in Henze’s Phaedra
at London’s Barbican Centre, and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
met appearances Adele in Die Fledermaus (debut, 2005).

career highlights She has sung Lulu with the Vienna State Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and

in Athens and Hamburg; Donna Clara in Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg and the title role of Thaïs in
Athens; Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos at Covent Garden; Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera at the
Bregenz Festival; Adele at Paris’s Bastille Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago; Elisa in Mozart’s
Il Re Pastore and Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Salzburg Festival; and Konstanze in Die
Entführung aus dem Serail at Brussels’s La Monnaie and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. She also
appeared as Aphrodite in the world premiere of Phaedra in Berlin and as Marta di Spelta in the
world premiere of Manfred Trojahn’s La Grande Magia in Dresden.

Simon Keenlyside
baritone (london, england)

this season Hamlet at the Met, Wozzeck with the Paris Opera, Macbeth with the Vienna State
Opera, Rodrigo in Don Carlo at Covent Garden and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, and his first
Rigoletto with the Welsh National Opera.

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met appearances Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore (debut, 1996),

Olivier in Capriccio, Marcello in La Bohème, and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte.

career highlights The title role of Billy Budd, Prospero in the world premiere of Thomas Adès’s

The Tempest, and Winston in the world premiere of Maazel’s 1984 at Covent Garden; Rodrigo
at the Vienna State Opera; Count Almaviva at La Scala and the Vienna State Opera; and Pelléas
in Pelléas et Mélisande in Geneva, Paris, and most recently in Salzburg, Berlin, and London. He
was the recipient of the 2006 Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in opera.

James Morris
bass (baltimore , maryland)

this season Jacopo Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra, Claudius in Hamlet, and Dr. Schön/Jack the
Ripper in Lulu at the Met, Scarpia in Tosca with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Hans Sachs in
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with the Cincinnati Opera.
met appearances More than 800 performances of 55 roles since his 1971 debut, including Wotan

in the Ring cycle, Scarpia, Hans Sachs, Claggart in Billy Budd, Iago in Otello, Amonasro in Aida,
Méphistophélès in Faust, and the title roles of Der Fliegende Holländer and Don Giovanni.
career highlights He has appeared in all the world’s leading opera houses and with the major

orchestras of Europe and the United States. One of the leading interpreters of Wagner’s Wotan,
he has sung the role in cycles at the Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper
Berlin, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and San Francisco Opera, among others.

Toby Spence
tenor (hertford, england)

this season Laërte in Hamlet for his Met debut, Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress at Covent
Garden, Henry Morosus in Die Schweigsame Frau with Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, and his
debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius.
career highlights He appears regularly with the English National Opera, Paris Opera, and at

Covent Garden in roles that include Fenton in Falstaff and Ferrando in Così fan tutte (ENO), Billy
Budd and Tom Rakewell (Paris), and Ramiro in La Cenerentola (Covent Garden). In Munich he
has sung Ferrando, Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Telemaco in Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, and Acis
in Acis and Galatea. He has also sung Tamino in Die Zauberflöte and David in Die Meistersinger
von Nürnberg in Brussels, Oronte in Alcina with the San Francisco Opera, Hyllas in Hercules at
the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and Tamino with the Santa Fe Opera.

Visit metopera.org 41
Facilities and Services
THE ARNOLD AND MARIE SCHWARTZ GALLERY MET
Art gallery located in the South Lobby featuring leading artists. Open Monday through Friday,
6pm through last intermission; Saturday, noon through last intermission of evening performances.
Assistive Listening System
Wireless headsets that work with the Sennheiser Infrared Listening System to amplify sound are available
in the South Check Room (Concourse level) before performances. Major credit card or driver’s license
required for deposit.
Binoculars
For rent at South Check Room, Concourse level.
Blind and Visually Impaired
Large print programs are available free of charge from the ushers. Braille synopses of many operas are
available free of charge. Please contact an usher. Affordable tickets for no-view score desk seats may be
purchased by calling the Metropolitan Opera Guild at 212-769-7028.
Box Office
Monday–Saturday, 10am through first intermission of the evening performance; Sunday, noon–6pm. The
Box Office closes at 8pm on non-performance evenings or on evenings with no intermission. Box Office
Information: 212-362-6000.
Check Room
On Concourse level (Founders Hall).
First Aid ­­­
Doctor in attendance during performances; contact an usher for assistance.
Lecture Series
For information on the 2009–2010 season of lectures and community programs, contact the
Metropolitan Opera Guild, 212-769-7028.
Lost and Found
Security office at Stage Door. Monday–Friday, 2pm–4pm; 212-799-3100, ext. 2499.
Lounges and RestRooms
On all seating levels. Wheelchair-accessible restrooms are located on the Dress Circle, Parterre, and
Founders Hall levels.
MET OPERA Shop
The Met Opera Shop is adjacent to the North Box Office, 212-580-4090. Open Monday–Saturday,
10am–final intermission; Sunday, noon–6pm.
Public Telephones
Telephones with volume controls and TTY Public Telephone located in Founders Hall on the Concourse
level.­­
Restaurant and Refreshment Facilities
The Grand Tier Restaurant at the Metropolitan Opera features creative contemporary American cuisine,
and the Revlon Bar offers panini, crostini, and a full service bar. Both are now open two hours prior
to the Metropolitan Opera curtain time to any Lincoln Center ticket holder for pre-curtain dining.
Pre-ordered intermission dining is also available for Metropolitan Opera ticket holders. For reservations
please call 212-799-3400.
Seat Cushions
Available in the South Check Room. Major credit card or driver’s license required for deposit.
School Programs
For information contact the Metropolitan Opera Guild Education Department, 212-769-7022.
Score Reading
Tickets for score desk seats in the Family Circle boxes may be purchased by calling the Metropolitan
Opera Guild at 212-769-7028. These no-view seats provide an affordable way for music students to study
an opera’s score during a live performance.
Tour Guide Service
For reservations for backstage tours of the Opera House, telephone the Metropolitan Opera Guild,
212-769-7020. Tours of Lincoln Center daily; call 212-875-5351 for availability.
Website
www.metopera.org
Wheelchair Accommodations
Telephone 212-799-3100, ext. 2204. Wheelchair entrance at Concourse level.

The exits indicated by a red light and the sign nearest the seat The photographing or sound recording of any performance, or
you occupy are the shortest routes to the street. In the event of the possession of any device for such photographing or sound
fire or other emergency, please do not run—walk to that exit. recording inside this theater, without the written permission
of the management, is prohibited by law. Offenders may be
In compliance with New York City Department of Health ejected and liable for damages and other lawful remedies.
regulations, smoking is prohibited in all areas of this theater.
Patrons with cellular telephones, alarm watches, and/or
Patrons are reminded that in deference to the performing artists electronic paging systems are requested to turn them off prior
and the seated audience, those who leave the auditorium during to entering the auditorium.
the performance will not be readmitted while the performance
is in progress.

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