Met Stars Live in Concert presents

Wagnerians in Concert

Live: Saturday, May 8 at 1:00 PM ET

A quartet of opera’s most powerful and dramatic singers comes together for a program of soaring selections by Wagner and Strauss. Transmitted live from the grand Hessisches Staatstheater in Wiesbaden, Germany, this unbeatable summit of leading Wagnerian voices features sopranos Christine Goerke and Elza van den Heever, tenor Andreas Schager, and baritone Michael Volle, with pianist Craig Terry, in excerpts from Tannhäuser, Parsifal, Die Walküre, Die Frau ohne Schatten, and more, as well as Wagner’s complete Wesendonck Lieder.

Program

“Dich, teure Halle”
From Wagner’s Tannhäuser

“Allerseelen,” Op. 10, No. 8
By Richard Strauss

“Cäcilie,” Op. 27, No. 2
By Richard Strauss

“Wie Todesahnung … O du, mein holder Abendstern”
From Wagner’s Tannhäuser

“Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater”
From Wagner’s Die Walküre

Wesendonck Lieder
“Der Engel”
“Stehe still!”
“Im Treibhaus”
“Schmerzen”
“Träume”
By Richard Wagner

“Wirst du des Vaters Wahl nicht schelten?”
From Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer

“Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond … Du bist der Lenz”
From Wagner’s Die Walküre

“Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge”
From Wagner’s Das Rheingold

“Nur eine Waffe taugt”
From Wagner’s Parsifal

“Euch Lüften … Entweihte Götter!”
From Wagner’s Lohengrin

“Nun will ich jubeln”
From R. Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten

About the Artists

A graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, soprano Christine Goerke made her Met debut in 1995 in the Ensemble of John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles. Since then, she has sung more than 100 performances of 14 roles with the company, including the title roles of Turandot and Elektra, Brünnhilde in the Ring cycle, the Dyer’s Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites. She is also the host of the groundbreaking Met Stars Live in Concert series, and beginning with the 2021–22 season, she will serve as associate artistic director for Michigan Opera Theater. She has appeared at many of the world’s leading opera houses, including La Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Paris Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival, among many others. Her most recent appearances include Brünnhilde in Twilight: Gods at Michigan Opera Theater, Elektra at the Vienna State Opera and Canadian Opera Company, Isolde in Tristan und Isolde in concert at Lucerne Festival and in Amsterdam, and Ortrud in Lohengrin at Covent Garden.

As a young artist, Johannesburg-born soprano Elza van den Heever participated in the Merola Opera Program and Adler Fellowship at San Francisco Opera, where she also created the role of Mary Custis Lee in the world premiere of Philip Glass’s Appomattox. Between 2008 and 2013, she was a member of the ensemble at Oper Frankfurt. She made her Met debut in 2012 as Elizabeth I in the company-premiere staging Maria Stuarda and has since appeared as Marie in Wozzeck, Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito, Chrysothemis in Elektra, Elettra in Idomeneo, and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. During the 2021–22 season, she will sing her first Handel at the Met, taking on the title role of Rodelinda. In recent seasons, she has sung the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten in concert in Paris, Julia in Spontini’s La Vestale in Vienna, Leonora in Il Trovatore and the title role of Norma in Frankfurt, Chrysothemis at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Elsa in Lohengrin at the Vienna State Opera, Leonore in Zurich, the title role of Alcina at the Santa Fe Opera, and Norma at the Dallas Opera and Canadian Opera Company. Equally at home on the concert stage, she has also appeared to acclaim with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Symphonieorchester Voralberg, and San Francisco Symphony, among others.

One of today’s leading heldentenors, Andreas Schager began his career singing operetta and lyrical roles before switching to the heroes of Wagner and Strauss. He has appeared to great acclaim with many of the world’s leading opera companies, including the Bayreuth Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, La Scala, Paris Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and in Madrid, Prague, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Leipzig, and Wiesbaden. He made his Met debut in 2019 as Siegfried in the company’s critically acclaimed performances of the Ring cycle. His recent appearances include the title role of Siegfried in Madrid, Florestan in Fidelio in Zurich, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte and the Emperor in Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Vienna State Opera, Menelas in Die Ägyptische Helena at La Scala, Siegfried in the Ring cycle and Tristan in Tristan und Isolde at Staatsoper Berlin, and the title role of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival. He is also a prolific concert singer, appearing most recently with the Cleveland Orchestra, Philharmonie de Paris, Vienna Philharmonic, Philharmonie am Gasteig, and Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Last seen on the Met stage as Wotan in the acclaimed 2019 Ring cycles, baritone Michael Volle made his debut with the company in 2014 as Mandryka in Arabella and returned in subsequent seasons as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the title role of Der Fliegende Holländer, and Scarpia in Tosca. He will reprise his portrayal of Hans Sachs in the company’s eagerly anticipated 2021–22 season. Elsewhere in recent seasons, he has sung Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death and Jochanaan in Salome in Baden-Baden, Haydn’s Creation in Florence, the title role of Boris Godunov in Zurich, Barak in Die Frau ohne Schatten in concert in Paris, Dutchman in Wiesbaden, Orest in Elektra and Jochanaan at the Vienna State Opera, and the High Priest of Dagon in Samson et Dalila, Herr Fluth in Nicolai’s Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, and Wotan at Staatsoper Berlin. He has also appeared to great acclaim at the Bayreuth Festival, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera, La Scala, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Covent Garden, Germany’s Heidenheim Opera Festival, Paris Opera, Salzburg Festival, and in Frankfurt, Tokyo, Mannheim, and Dresden.

Grammy Award–winning pianist and arranger Craig Terry enjoys an international career regularly performing with the world’s leading singers and instrumentalists. Currently, he serves as music director of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago, after having served for 11 seasons at Lyric as assistant conductor. He is artistic director of Beyond the Aria, a highly acclaimed recital series now in its seventh sold-out season, presented by the Harris Theater in collaboration with the Ryan Opera Center and Lyric Opera of Chicago, and his discography includes recordings with soprano Patricia Racette, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, and soprano Nicole Cabell. His latest recording project with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, Songplay, received the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Previously, he served as assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, after participating in the company’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. He has also collaborated as a chamber musician with members of the Met Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchester, and the Pro Arte String Quartet.

https://www.metopera.org

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 14 days.

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