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Metropolitan Opera: Verdi’s Macbeth

Airs Saturday, March 24 at 12:00 noon. The 2011-12 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues with a live broadcast of Verdi’s Macbeth, starring Thomas Hampson in the title role. Gianandrea Noseda conducts his first Met performances of Verdi’s opera, adapted from the Shakespeare tragedy, which also stars German soprano Nadja Michael in her Met debut run as Lady Macbeth. Dimitri Pittas reprises his Macduff, seen in the 2007 premiere of Adrian Noble’s production, and Günther Groissböck sings the role of Banquo.  Macbeth will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 12:00 p.m. CT on Saturday, March 24.

Macbeth is Hampson’s fifth Verdi role at the Met, where he has also sung Giorgio Germont in La Traviata, Rodrigo in Don Carlo, the title role in Simon Boccanegra, and Carlo in Ernani. Next season, he will make his Met role debut as Iago in Verdi’s Otello. His extensive repertory with the company also includes numerous Mozart roles, most frequently the title character in Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte; the Wagner roles of Amfortas in Parsifal and Wolfram in Tannhäuser; and the title roles in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Britten’s Billy Budd, Busoni’s Doktor Faust, Tchaikosvky’s Eugene Onegin, and Massenet’s Werther.

Michael, who has sung Lady Macbeth at the Munich Festival and Bavarian State Opera, as well as at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (opposite Hampson), is internationally acclaimed for her vivid characterizations in an eclectic repertory. Her most frequent portrayals include the title role in Richard Strauss’s Salome, which she has sung in Munich and Dresden, the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, and the Teatro Communale in Bologna, and the title role in Puccini’s Tosca, which she has sung at the Arena di Verona, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and the Bregenz Festival.

Noseda led the recent new production premieres of Verdi’s Il Trovatore (2009) and La Traviata (2010), as well as revivals of La Forza del Destino and Un Ballo in Maschera. He made his Met debut conducting Prokofiev’s War and Peace in the 2001-02 season and most recently led four performances of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor during the company’s June 2011 tour of Japan. Pittas has sung several leading roles at the Met in recent seasons, including Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème, Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, and Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Austrian bass Groissböck made his Met debut as Colline in La Bohème in 2010. This season, he sang Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Vienna State Opera.

The single intermission will include interviews with the opera’s stars.