Thursday, January 26, 2012

Patricia Racette Returns as "Tosca" on Met's Saturday Matinee Broadcast, January 28


St. Louis Public Radio will carry the Met Opera broadcast of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca on their HD channel, KWMU-3 beginning at 12 noon. Approximate running time 3 hours, with intermissions at approximately 12:45 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.

The Met says:
Patricia Racette won plaudits when she first sang the title role at the Met in 2010. Now she she's back with Robert Dean Smith as her heroic lover, Cavaradossi. James Morris is Scarpia.
CBC Radio 2 reports:
"A shabby little shocker" is how the opera Tosca has been described. One French critic called it "coarsely puerile, pretentious and vapid." Even the New York Times felt compelled to comment that "Puccini will do better with a better story." It's a tale that features torture, attempted assault and murder, and to this day audiences can't seem to get enough of it. Before there was C.S.I. or Law and Order SVU, there was Puccini's Tosca!

The 2011-2012 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues with a live broadcast of Puccini's Tosca, starring Patricia Racette as the fiery title character, Marcelo Álvarez as her lover, the idealistic Cavaradossi, and James Morris as the villain Scarpia. Finnish conductor Mikko Franck makes his Met debut with this season's performances of Tosca, and veteran bass Paul Plishka, whose distinguished Met career spans more than 40 years, sings the role of the Sacristan in his final Met performance.

Earlier this season, Plishka decided that this performance would be his farewell to the Met. Since his debut as a monk in Ponchielli's La Gioconda on September 21, 1967, he has sung more than 1,600 Met performances in 88 roles, including the title roles in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Verdi's Falstaff, Philip II in Don Carlo, and Leporello in Don Giovanni. During the first intermission, an onstage presentation will mark his final performance. The radio broadcast will carry this special moment as part of its intermissions, along with backstage interviews with the stars and the "Opera Quiz."

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