Piotr Beczała and Sondra Radvanovsky – January 23, 2021

Met Stars Live in Concert presents

Piotr Beczała and Sondra Radvanovsky

WITH VINCENZO SCALERA, PIANO

Live: Saturday, January 23 at 1:00 PM ET

High notes and high drama will be in abundance when this world-famous soprano-tenor pairing comes together for a thrilling performance broadcast live from Germany’s historic Stadthalle Wuppertal. Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczała sing arias and duets from some of the many classic operas they’ve performed on the stage of the Met, as well as selections from off the beaten path.

The Program

“Pace, pace, mio Dio”
From Verdi’s La Forza del Destino

“Quando le sere al placido”
From Verdi’s Luisa Miller

“Teco io sto … Non sai tu che se l’anima mia … Oh qual soave brivido”
From Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera

“Come un bel dì di Maggio”
From Giordano’s Andrea Chénier

“La mamma morta”
From Giordano’s Andrea Chénier

“Vicino a te s’acqueta … La nostra morte”
From Giordano’s Andrea Chénier

“Sola, perduta, abbandonata”
From Puccini’s Manon Lescaut

“Mamma, quel vino è generoso”
From Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana

“Io son l’umile ancella”
From Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur

“Szumią jodły na gór szczycie”
From Moniuszko’s Halka

Song to the Moon
From Dvořák’s Rusalka

Prince’s Aria
From Dvořák’s Rusalka

Final Duet
From Dvořák’s Rusalka

About the Artists

Tenor Piotr Beczała was born in Czechowice-Dziedzice in southern Poland. Early on in his operatic career, he became a company member of the Zurich Opera, where his roles included Alfredo in La Traviata, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, the title role of Faust, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Elvino in La Sonnambula, Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschera, and Rodolfo in La Bohème. He has returned to Zurich in recent seasons in productions of Manon, Werther and Das Land des Lächelns. He sang the Duke in Rigoletto for his 2006 debut at the Met, where has since sung Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, Rodolfo in Luisa Miller and La Bohème, Gustavo in Un Ballo in Maschera, Vaudémont in Iolanta, the Prince in Rusalka, Lenski in Eugene Onegin, the title role of Faust, des Grieux in Manon, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and Roméo in Roméo et Juliette. He has been featured in eight Live in HD transmissions, beginning in 2009, when he replaced an ailing colleague at the last minute for a broadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor. He has also had great successes in recent performances at the Polish National Opera, Vienna State Opera, Salzburg Festival, Bayreuth Festival, Staatsoper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera, and in Barcelona and Madrid. In 2016, he debuted his first Wagner role, the title character of Lohengrin, at Dresden’s Semperoper.

After winning the National Council Auditions in 1995, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky joined the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. She made her debut with the company in 1996 as Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto, and over the course of the next two and a half decades, she has given more than 200 performances of 27 roles, including Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera, Leonora in Il Trovatore, Lina in Stiffelio, Elvira in Ernani, Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac, and the title roles of Norma, Tosca, and Aida. During the 2015–16 season, she sang all three heroines in Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy of Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Roberto Devereux. In recent seasons, she has also sung Lisa in The Queen of Spades and Norma at Lyric Opera of Chicago; the title role of Rusalka, Anna Bolena, and Norma at the Canadian Opera Company; Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux at San Francisco Opera; Tosca at Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, and LA Opera; Maddalena di Coigny in Andrea Chénier and the title role of Manon Lescaut at Covent Garden; the title role of Luisa Miller, Paolina in Donizetti’s Poliuto in concert, and Maddalena di Coigny in Barcelona; Leonora and Amelia at the Paris Opera; Amelia in Zurich; and Amelia Grimaldi in Simon Boccanegra in concert in Paris and Monte Carlo.

After graduating from Manhattan School of Music, New Jersey­–born pianist Vincenzo Scalera worked as an assistant conductor with the New Jersey State Opera. He continued his studies in Italy, and in 1980, joined the music staff at La Scala, assisting conductors Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, and Carlos Kleiber. He has collaborated with generations of exceptional singers, including Montserrat Caballé, Leyla Gencer, Maria Guleghina, Sumi Jo, Raina Kabaivanska, Katia Ricciarelli, Renata Scotto, José Carreras, Juan Diego Flórez, and Cesare Siepi, among numerous others. He first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in 2014, accompanying Vittorio Grigolo’s solo recital, and has also performed at many of the world’s most prestigious music festivals, including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Martina Franca, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Orange, and Pesaro’s Rossini Opera Festival. He recently completed a German recital tour with Andrea Bocelli and was a longtime collaborator with Carlo Bergonzi. He is a member of the staff of La Scala’s Accademia d’Arti e Mestieri and was an instructor with the Renata Scotto Opera Academy in Savona, Italy, teaching classes in accompanying for pianists and operatic literature for singers.

Met Stars Live in Concert
Opera’s greatest stars perform in a groundbreaking new series of pay-per-view recitals in striking locations around the globe, each live via satellite and shot with multiple cameras. While the Metropolitan Opera House remains dark because of the ongoing health crisis, Met Stars Live in Concert will allow audiences to experience extraordinary solo and duo performances by top singers—streamed live online—from such locations as a former abbey in Bavaria, a Norwegian castle, an outdoor terrace on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, a church in Wales, and a historic mansion in Washington, D.C. The series marries the intimacy of the Met’s virtual At-Home Gala with the high production value of the company’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions.

Tickets for each recital are $20, and the performances will remain available on demand for 12 days.