Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Dialogues des Carmélites to conclude his first season as Met Music Director

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Dialogues des Carmélites to conclude his first season as Met Music Director

•  Poulenc’s operatic masterpiece stars Isabel Leonard, Adrianne Pieczonka, and Karita Mattila

•  Dialogues des Carmélites will be transmitted live to movie theaters around the world on Saturday, May 11, as part of The Met: Live in HD series

New York, NY (April 19, 2019)—The Metropolitan Opera’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, concludes his first season in the position with three performances of Dialogues des Carmélites. Poulenc’s opera about an order of nuns whose faith is tested during the height of the French Revolution, returns to the Met on May 3, 2019. Isabel Leonard and Adrianne Pieczonka sing the leading roles of Blanche de la Force and the new Prioress, Madame Lidoine. Karita Mattila, making her role debut, portrays the ailing first prioress, Madame de Croissy. The cast also includes Karen Cargill as Mother Marie, Erin Morley in the role of Sister Constance, David Portillo as Blanche’s brother the Chevalier de la Force, and Jean-François Lapointe in his Met debut as the Marquis de la Force. The opera is presented in John Dexter’s acclaimed 1977 Met production.

Dialogues des Carmélites Worldwide Broadcasts in Cinema, Radio, and Online

The performance of Dialogues des Carmélites on Saturday, May 11 will be transmitted live to more than 2,200 movie theaters in more than 70 countries as part of the Met’s Live in HD series. The transmission will be hosted by soprano Renée Fleming.

The May 3 and May 11 performances of Dialogues des Carmélites will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on Sirius XM Channel 75, the May 11 performance will be broadcast over the Toll Brothers–Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network, and the May 3 performance will also be streamed live on the Met’s web site, metopera.org.

Dialogues des Carmélites Artist Biographies

Earlier this season, American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard sang Mélisande in Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and the title role of Nico Muhly’s Marnie, which was seen around the world as part of The Met: Live in HD series. She made her Met debut as Stéphano in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in 2007, followed by roles as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni,Rosina in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Miranda in Thomas Adès’s The Tempest,and Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther. On June 3, she will appear with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, led by Maestro Nézet-Séguin.

Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka sings Madame Lidoine, a role she has previously sung at Dutch National Opera. She made her Met debut in 2004 as Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades,followed by Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre, Amelia Grimaldi in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra,Chrysothemis in Strauss’s Elektra and Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio. Other performances this season include the Marschallin in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos at Vienna State Opera and Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.

American soprano Erin Morley reprises Constance, which she sang at the Met in 2013. A graduate of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she has sung 12 roles at the Met, including Sophie in the new production of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier,Woglinde and the Woodbird in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, Madame Podtochina’s daughter in the Met premiere of Shostakovich’s The Nose, Echo in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, the Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, and Olympia in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Other recent credits include Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at Vienna State Opera and Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide at LA Opera. This season at the Met, she sings the Woodbird in Wagner’s Siegfried and Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. 

Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill makes her Met role debut as Mother Marie. She made her Met debut as Waltraute in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung in 2012 and performed the role in complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen in the Met’s 2011–12 and 2012–13 seasons. Also in 2012, she sang Anna in the Met’s production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens. Her other recent performances have included Waltraute at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Geneviève in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at the Glyndebourne Festival. This season at the Met, she sings Erda in the return of the Ring cycle.

Finish soprano Karita Mattila made her Met debut as Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and has sung 15 other roles with the company, including both the title role and the Kostelnička in Janacek’s Jenůfa, Eva in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades,Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin,Amelia Grimaldi in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra,and the title roles of Puccini’s Tosca and Manon Lescaut,Strauss’s Salome, and Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová. Earlier this season, she was seen as the Foreign Princess in Dvořák’s Rusalka at Paris Opera, Kostelnička at Bavarian State Opera, and Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre at San Francisco Opera.

American tenor David Portillo makes his Met role debut as Chevalier de la Force. He made his Met debut in 2015 as Count Almaviva in the Met’s holiday presentation of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, followed by performances as Eduardo in the Met premiere of Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel, Camille de Rosillon in Lehár’s The Merry Widow, and Jaquino in Beethoven’s Fidelio. Other performances this season include Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Glyndebourne Festival and Oper Frankfurt, Idamante in Mozart’s Idomeneo at the Teatro Real in Madrid, and Pasquale in Haydn’s Orlando Paladino at Bavarian State Opera.

Canadian baritone Jean-François Lapointe makes his Met debut as Marquis de la Force, a role he has previously sung at Dutch National Opera. Recent performances include Hérode in Massenet’s Hérodiade and Rodrigo in Verdi’s Don Carlo at Marseilles Opera and Valentin in Gounod’s Faust and the title role of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. This season, he sings Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff at Opéra de Monte-Carlo and Golaud in Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande at Opéra National du Rhin.

With the start of the 2018–19 season, Yannick Nézet-Séguin became the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director. He made his Met debut in the 2009–2010 season, conducting a new production of Bizet’s Carmen. The Canadian conductor has returned in every subsequent season, leading performances of Wagner’s Parsifal and Der Fliegende Holländer, Strauss’s Elektra, Verdi’s Don Carlo, Gounod’s Faust, Verdi’s La Traviata, and Dvořák’s Rusalka. He also led the opening night performance of the Met’s 2015–2016 season, a new production of Verdi’s Otello. Earlier this season, he conducted the Met’s new production of La Traviata as well as performances of Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande. He has conducted a wide breadth of repertoire at a number of the world’s leading companies, including the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Dutch National Opera, the Salzburg Festival, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He is also a frequent guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Since 2012, he has been music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He is also music director of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain. On June 3, Nézet-Séguin leads The Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in a program of French works with Isabel Leonard singing Dutilleux’s Le temps l’horloge and Ravel’s Shéhérazade, alongside Debussy’s La mer and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2.  Maestro returns the following week on June 14 with the orchestra and Elīna Garanča singing Mahler’s Rückert Lieder in a program that also includes Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. 

For More Information

For further details on Dialogues des Carmélites, including casting by date, please click here.

Dialogues des Carmélites

Music and libretto by Francis Poulenc

Friday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, May 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 11 at 12:00 p.m.

^*Met debut

Production a gift of Francis Goelet

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