Airs Saturday, February 25 at 12:00 noon. The 2011-2012 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues with a live broadcast of Verdi’s Ernani, featuring an acclaimed cast. The rising young American soprano Angela Meade is Elvira; Marcello Giordani is her beloved, the bandit Ernani; and Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Ferruccio Furlanetto play her noble suitors, Carlo and Silva. Ernani will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 12 p.m. CST on Saturday, February 25. The performance will also be transmitted worldwide to more than 1,700 movie theaters in 54 countries as part of The Met: Live in HD series.
Meade, the winner of this year’s Beverly Sills Artist award, made a notable Met debut as Elvira in the 2007-08 revival of Ernani, filling in at the last minute. Earlier this season, she sang the daunting title role of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. She was a winner of the Met’s National Council Auditions in 2007 and has also appeared with the Met as the Countess in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and as a soloist in the 2011 Summer Recital Series. Giordani sang the title role of Ernani to critical acclaim in the Met’s 2007-08 season. His other Met roles this season are Radamès in Verdi’s Aida, which will be heard later in the radio broadcast season, and Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Hvorostovsky makes a Met role debut as Carlo, King of Spain. This is the sixth Verdi role in his Met repertory, joining the title character in Simon Boccanegra, Germont in La Traviata (a role he repeats later this season), Rodrigo in Don Carlo, Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera, and di Luna in Il Trovatore. The vengeful grandee Silva is one of three roles Furlanetto sings at the Met this season. He sang Méphistophélès in the new production of Gounod’s Faust and just completed his run as Don Basilio in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The versatile artist first sang Silva at the Met in the 2007-08 revival of Ernani. Maestro Armiliato’s numerous Met appearances have included a wide range of Verdi works, from the early Attila to the repertory staples Aida, Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Il Trovatore.
The intermissions will include backstage interviews with the stars, led by the host of the HD transmission, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and the popular Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Quiz, featuring guest artist soprano Diana Damrau.