Metropolitan Opera: Donizetti’s Anna Bolena

Airs Saturday, January 9, at 12 noon. The 2015-16 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues with a live broadcast of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, with American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. This will be the first broadcast of Radvanovsky’s season-long quest to sing all three of the principal heroines in Donizetti’s “Tudor queens trilogy,” being presented in its entirety for the first time at the Met this season. In the first opera, Anna Bolena, Radvanovsky stars as the young Anne Boleyn, who struggles to hold onto the throne of England. Later this season, Radvanovsky will return as Mary, Queen of Scots in Maria Stuarda (which will be broadcast on February 20) and as the conflicted Elizabeth I in the first-ever Met performances of Roberto Devereux (which will be broadcast on April 16). Radvanovsky will be the first soprano since Beverly Sills in the 1970s to sing all three of these roles in the course of a single New York season. Anna Bolena also stars rising American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Giovanna, the queen’s rival, and IldarAbdrazakov as Enrico, King Henry VIII of England, along with Stephen Costello as Anna’s first love, Lord Riccardo Percy, and Tamara Mumford as Smeton. Marco Armiliato conducts. Anna Bolena will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 12 p.m. CT on Saturday, January 9.