A Service of UA Little Rock
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Feb. 1: Madama Butterfly

Ken Howard
/
Metropolitan Opera

The 2013-14 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues with a live broadcast of Puccini’s tragedy Madama Butterfly Saturday, February 1 from noon-4 on KLRE Classical 90.5.

South African soprano Amanda Echalaz, who makes her Met debut this season, sings Cio-Cio-San, opposite tenor Bryan Hymel as Pinkerton. The cast also includes mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki and American baritone Scott Hendricks in his network broadcast debut as Sharpless, conducted by Philippe Auguin. Madama Butterfly will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 1:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, February 1.

Amanda Echalaz has appeared as Cio-Cio-San with Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Bavarian State Opera, and Cape Town Opera. She has sung numerous Puccini heroines, including the title roles in Manon Lescaut (at La Monnaie in Brussels and the Polish National Opera in Warsaw) and Tosca (at Royal Opera, Covent Garden; English National Opera; Berlin State Opera; and Santa Fe Opera). She sang Tatiana in the premiere of Deborah Warner’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at English National Opera in 2011.

Bryan Hymel made an acclaimed, unexpected Met debut last season as Aeneas in Berlioz’s Les Troyens, in a series of performances that included an international Live in HD transmission. His other engagements this season include Henri in Verdi’s Les Vêpres Siciliennes at Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Pinkerton at the Vienna State Opera; the title role of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Zurich Opera; and Arnold in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell at the Bavarian State Opera. Hymel is the winner of the Met’s 2013 Beverly Sills Artist Award.

Elizabeth DeShong’s previous roles at the Met include Hermia in both Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island. Later this season, she will reprise the role of Hermia in the first Met revival of The Enchanted Island, which will be broadcast live on Saturday, March 8, and also sing Suzuki at San Francisco Opera.

Scott Hendricks makes his Met debut with this run of Madama Butterfly. His other engagements in recent seasons have included Scarpia in Tosca at the Bavarian State Opera, Stuttgart Opera, Paris Opera, and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Amonasro in Verdi’s Aida at Canadian Opera Company and Houston Grand Opera; and Francesco in Verdi’s I Masnadieri with Washington Concert Opera.

Philippe Auguin made his Met debut in 2001 conducting the company premiere of Busoni’s Doktor Faust. In subsequent seasons, he has led a diverse repertory that includes Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, Wagner’s Lohengrin, and Puccini’s Tosca and La Bohème. This spring, he leads a Met revival of Strauss’s Arabella, which will be broadcast live on Saturday, April 19.

The intermissions will include backstage interviews with the stars, as well as the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Quiz, featuring mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili. She in one of the stars of the Met’s new production of Borodin’s Prince Igor which opens on February 6.