Saturday Afternoon at the Opera takes over the Radio 2 schedule from 12 noon through 6:00 (1:00-7:00 AT, 1:30-7:30 NT) as the Met's new Ring cycle, directed by Robert Lepage, reaches its cataclysmic climax. Will it be the One Ring to Rule Them All? Deborah Voigt stars as Brünnhilde and Jay Hunter Morris is Siegfried, the star-crossed lovers doomed by fate. Fabio Luisi conducts his first Met performances of Wagner’s epic conclusion to the Ring tetralogy. Lepage’s Ring production features a unique, technologically groundbreaking single set that can assume countless configurations and transform through video projections into the mythic locations specified by Wagner’s stage directions. The premiere of the first opera, Das Rheingold, opened the Met’s 2010-11 season; the new productions of Die Walküre and Siegfried followed in April and October 2011.
The distinguished company of Wagnerians also includes Hans-Peter König as Hagen, Waltraud Meier as Waltraute, Wendy Bryn Harmer as Gutrune, Iain Paterson as Gunther, and Eric Owens as Alberich; all singers but Paterson are making their house role debuts. Götterdämmerung will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network and will also be transmitted worldwide to more than 1,700 movie theaters in 54 countries as part of The Met: Live in HD series. The Met has published a synopsis as an online pdf if you'd like to catch up on the storyline.
The intermissions will include live backstage interviews, as well as the popular Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Quiz, featuring soprano Angela Meade.