Richard Strauss

Arabella
CONDUCTOR
Lyric comedy in three acts
Philippe Auguin
Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
PRODUCTION
Otto Schenk

SET DESIGNER Friday, April 11, 2014, 7:30–11:15 pm

Günther
Schneider-Siemssen

COSTUME DESIGNER
Milena Canonero

LIGHTING DESIGNER
Gil Wechsler
The production of Arabella was made possible
STAGE DIRECTOR by a generous gift from Mrs. Michael Falk
Stephen Pickover

GENERAL MANAGER
Peter Gelb

MUSIC DIRECTOR
James Levine

PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR
Fabio Luisi
 2013–14 Season

The 55th Metropolitan Opera performance of

Richard Strauss’s

Arabella
Conductor
Philippe Auguin

in order of vocal appearance

A fortune teller Mandryka

Victoria Livengood Michael Volle

Countess Welko
Adelaide Waldner Mark Persing
Catherine Wyn-Rogers
Count Dominik
Zdenka, her daughter Alexey Lavrov*
Juliane Banse
Count Lamoral
Matteo, a young officer Keith Miller
Roberto Saccà
The Fiakermilli
Arabella, Zdenka’s sister Audrey Luna
Malin Byström
Djura
Count Elemer Jeffrey Mosher
Brian Jagde
Jankel
Count Waldner, Timothy Breese Miller
a retired captain
Martin Winkler Cardplayers
Scott Dispensa
A waiter Seth Malkin
Mark Schowalter Earle Patriarco

Friday, April 11, 2014, 7:30–11:15 pm

MARTY SOHL/METROPOLITAN OPERA
Malin Byström in
the title role of
Strauss’s Arabella
* Member of the
Lindemann Young Artist
Development Program
Yamaha. Celebrating 25 Years
as the Official Piano
of the Metropolitan Opera.
Latecomers will not be
admitted during the
performance.
Visit metopera.org
Chorus Master Donald Palumbo
Musical Preparation Donna Racik, John Keenan,
Dan Saunders, and Jonathan Kelly
Assistant Stage Director Gina Lapinski
Prompter Donna Racik
Met Titles Christopher Bergen
German Coach Marianne Barrett
Scenery, properties, and electrical props constructed and
painted in Metropolitan Opera Shops
Costumes executed by Metropolitan Opera
Costume Department
Wigs and Makeup executed by Metropolitan Opera
Wig and Makeup Department
Ladies’ millinery by Gary Brouwer of
Eaves Brooks Costumes
Men’s hats by Richard Tautkus
Uniforms by Lambert Hofer, Vienna, Austria
Furs by Alexander and Sons
Arabella is performed by arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.,
publisher and copyright owner.
This performance is made possible in part by public funds from
the New York State Council on the Arts.
Before the performance begins, please switch off
cell phones and other electronic devices.
Met Titles
To activate, press the red button to the right of the screen in front of
your seat and follow the instructions provided. To turn off the display,
press the red button once again. If you have questions please ask an
usher at intermission.
 KEN HOWARD / METROPOLITAN OPERA
2013–14 season A scene from Madama Butterfly

e Metropolitan Opera is pleased

to salute Bank of America in
recognition of its generous support
during the 2013–14 season.
Synopsis

Vienna, 1860

Act I A drawing room in a Vienna Hotel

Intermission (AT APPROXIMATELY 8:40 PM)

Act II Foyer to a public ballroom

Intermission (AT APPROXIMATELY 10:00 PM)

Act III A lobby in the hotel

Act I
In the Waldners’ hotel suite, Countess Adelaide von Waldner consults a fortune
teller about the family’s financial crisis. The cards predict a rich marriage for their
beautiful daughter Arabella, which would get the family out of debt, but the
fortune teller sees danger from a second daughter. Adelaide admits that their
“son,” “Zdenko,” who has been warding off creditors at the door, is in fact a
girl, Zdenka, who has been brought up as a boy to save the family the ruinous
expense of introducing two daughters into society. Adelaide and the fortune
teller leave and Zdenka, alone, laments the family’s situation. She fears they will
have to leave Vienna and she will never see Matteo again, a young lieutenant
and one of her sister’s suitors with whom Zdenka has fallen in love. To keep him
happy, she has been writing him love letters in Arabella’s hand. Suddenly Matteo
appears and asks his best friend, “Zdenko,” to help him win Arabella—otherwise
he will shoot himself. Then he rushes off, leaving Zdenka desperate.

Arabella returns from a walk to find presents from her three other suitors, Counts
Elemer, Dominik, and Lamoral. Although Zdenka loves Matteo, she begs her
sister to favor him so he will not be heartbroken. Arabella replies that the right
man for her hasn’t appeared yet—she knows that once he does, she’ll recognize
him. Elemer arrives to invite Arabella for a sleigh ride. Before she goes off to
change, she notices a stranger outside the window whom she had seen earlier
that morning. The two girls leave as Count Waldner enters and tells his wife that
as a last resort he has sent a photograph of Arabella to a rich old friend and fellow
officer, Mandryka, hoping he would marry her. A few moments later Mandryka
himself is announced—in fact, not the old Croatian friend, who has died, but his
nephew and heir. The younger Mandryka has fallen in love with Arabella’s portrait
and sold one of his forests in Slavonia to come to Vienna and ask for her hand.
He lends the stunned Waldner some money, then leaves with the promise of
an introduction later in the day. Waldner sets off to gamble with his newfound
wealth. Matteo returns and Zdenka promises him she will have another letter from
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 Synopsis CONTINUED

her sister that evening at the Coachmen’s Ball. Arabella, alone, reflects on the
decision as to which suitor she will choose, her thoughts turning to the stranger
she saw in the street. When Zdenka returns, the sisters go off to their sleigh ride.

Act II
In the foyer of the ballroom, Waldner introduces Arabella to Mandryka, who
turns out to be her fascinating stranger. Their meeting begins awkwardly as
Mandryka, not used to Viennese society, feels he doesn’t find the right words,
but Arabella is instantly attracted by his honest and straightforward manner—it
is love at first sight. Mandryka tells of his young wife who died, of his lands, and
the Slavonian custom of a girl pledging her engagement by presenting her future
husband with a glass of water. Arabella returns his declaration of love but asks
for one last evening to bid farewell to her girlhood. The coachmen’s mascot, the
Fiakermilli, enters accompanied by her admirers and names Arabella queen of
the ball. Mandryka orders champagne for everyone and steps aside as Arabella
bids goodbye to Dominik, Elemer, and Lamoral. Meanwhile Matteo pleads
desperately with Zdenka for some sign of Arabella’s professed love. Zdenka
presses a key into his hands, telling him it opens the door next to Arabella’s
bedroom, and that Arabella will meet him there later this evening. Mandryka,
who has overheard the conversation, is appalled. Furious, he orders more
champagne, drinks recklessly, and flirts with the Fiakermilli. Waldner appears,
demanding to know what’s going on, and Adelaide explains that Arabella has
gone home. Assuming there must be some sort of misunderstanding, Waldner
convinces Mandryka to return with him to the hotel at once.

Act III
Arabella enters the hotel lobby, dreamily thinking about her future life. Matteo,
who has just spent some time in a dark room with someone he thought
was Arabella, is amazed to find her there and can’t make sense of her cool
cordiality. Mandryka arrives with the Waldners. Recognizing Matteo as the
person who was given the key, he is convinced of Arabella’s betrayal despite her
protestations of innocence. His behavior leads Waldner to demand satisfaction.
Suddenly Zdenka comes running down the stairs in a nightgown. Overcome
with shame, she confesses she gave herself to Matteo to avert a worse disaster.
While her shocked parents forgive her, Matteo happily realizes that something
hadn’t been adding up from the beginning and that he is in love with Zdenka.
Mandryka, though mortally ashamed, quickly takes charge of the situation and
asks Waldner for Zdenka’s hand on Matteo’s behalf. As the others retire to their
quarters, Arabella asks Mandryka to have his servant bring a glass of water to
her room. Left alone and unable to forgive himself for his lack of trust in Arabella,
Mandryka despondently wonders how she feels about him now that she left
without even saying goodnight. As he is about to leave, Arabella appears at the
top of the stairs, water glass in hand. She forgives Mandryka, and they renew
their promise of love.
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In Focus

Richard Strauss

Arabella
Premiere: Dresden State Opera, 1933
The romantic comedy Arabella was the final collaboration of Richard Strauss and
his great librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It tells the story of an impoverished
noble family in mid 19th century Vienna trying to function on a tight budget in
a changing world. The parents hope to marry one daughter, the title character,
to a wealthy suitor while raising her younger sister, Zdenka, as a boy to save
money. While certain elements of operatic farce are present (including class
issues and gender disguise), there is a sober atmosphere about the work. The
second act, for example, takes place at a ball—but rather than a fantasy of
an aristocratic utopia, it’s a “coachman’s ball.” The issues of transformation—
emotional, spiritual, psychological—that Strauss portrayed so powerfully in
extreme terms in his earlier operas become, in Arabella, universal. The work is a
simple romance with a mundane domestic setting, but its characters’ journeys
are as moving and affecting in their own way as in, say, the highly symbolic Die
Frau ohne Schatten. Arabella herself—honest, pure, well-meaning—is one of
opera’s most appealing and believable characters. The setting of “Old Vienna”
is quite different from that in the same authors’ Der Rosenkavalier: the nostalgia
of the earlier opera is mythical and self-consciously anachronistic; in Arabella, it
is frank and without irony.

The Creators
Richard Strauss (1864–1949) composed an impressive body of orchestral works
and songs before turning to opera. After two early failures, Salome (1905)
caused a theatrical sensation, and the balance of his long career was largely
dedicated to the stage. His next opera, Elektra (1909), was his first collaboration
with Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), a partnership that became one of
the most remarkable in theater history. Hofmannsthal emerged as an author
and poet within the fervent intellectual atmosphere of Vienna at the turn of the
last century. Their personalities were very different—Hofmannsthal enjoyed the
world of abstract ideas, while Strauss was famously simple in his tastes—which
makes their collaboration all the more extraordinary.

The Setting
Arabella is set in Vienna around 1860. The historical moment that drives the plot
is the situation of a fading landed gentry attempting to keep up appearances
while somewhat adrift in the modern urban melting pot.

Visit metopera.org 37
 In Focus CONTINUED

The Music
The score of Arabella is beautiful and charming, with a wealth of lyrical melody
perfectly attuned to the demands of the story and characters. Arabella’s
love interest, Mandryka, is one of Strauss’s great baritone roles: his music, as
his character, is straightforward, with excursions into the bumptious (the end
of Act II and the beginning of Act III, when he thinks himself mocked by the
jaded city dwellers) and conversely into the lyrical (later in Act III when he
seeks forgiveness for his earlier behavior). However, it is Strauss’s most exalted
domains—his writing for the soprano voice and for the orchestra—that are
magnificently apparent throughout this score. The title character’s introspective
soliloquy that ends Act I is a rich and evocative portrayal of a person’s calm yet
profound internal monologue. Arabella’s Act I duet with Zdenka (also a soprano)
is among the finest for this voice type in the repertoire. Beyond its ravishing
beauty, it conveys a sense of wistful melancholy that represents Strauss’s human
insight at its best. It is also one of the moments in the score that makes use
of a Balkan folk melody. Another such instance appears when Arabella meets
Mandryka at the ball, and further development of this idea is heard in her
Act III musings about the married life in her future. Act II contains bright dance
music as well as vocal display in the character of the Fiakermilli, written for a
coloratura soprano as an artistic recreation of yodeling. The orchestra creates
unforgettable effects, nowhere more notable than in the touching final scene,
in which the listener is transported into a musical experience of forgiveness,
wisdom, and the burgeoning of true love.

Arabella at the Met

The U.S. premiere of Arabella took place at the Met in 1955, in an English-
language production directed by Herbert Graf and conducted by Rudolf Kempe.
Eleanor Steber sang the title role, opposite George London, Hilde Güden, and
Roberta Peters. Swiss soprano Lisa della Casa made 16 notable appearances as
Arabella in this production between 1957 and 1965, and Anneliese Rothenberger
appeared 12 times as Zdenka in the same period. The current production by
Otto Schenk premiered in 1983, with the work presented in German for the first
time at the Met. Erich Leinsdorf conducted Kiri Te Kanawa in the title role, Bernd
Weikl as Mandryka, and Kathleen Battle as Zdenka. Christian Thielemann led
eight performances in 1994, including the Met debut of Natalie Dessay as the
Fiakermilli. The most recent revival in 2001 starred Renée Fleming as Arabella,
Barbara Bonney as Zdenka, and Hans-Joachim Ketelsen as Mandryka, with
Christoph Eschenbach conducting in his Met debut.

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Program Note

I
t is fortunate for posterity that Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss
had little personal contact and, during the many years of their artistic
collaboration, conducted virtually all their business by letter. Their extensive
correspondence allows us to watch, with an intimacy rarely granted to outsiders,
the tortuous process of creation that resulted in so much fascinating work. In
these letters we can follow with exceptional clarity the development of Arabella,
first produced at the Dresden Opera in 1933 and, because of the poet’s untimely
death four years earlier, their final work together.
The essential features of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal collaboration were
established right at the beginning of the partnership. In 1906 Strauss persuaded
Hofmannsthal to adapt one of his plays into a libretto. During the course of his
labors, Hofmannsthal found himself acceding over and over again to Strauss’s
demands for various changes. Tedious as this must have been to him, Elektra,
the opera that resulted from their joint efforts, proved that Strauss’s instincts
had been correct. As Hofmannsthal discovered, often to his chagrin, those
instincts remained in all essentials correct during the remaining years of their
collaboration.
While Hofmannsthal—fastidious, complex, touchy, self-protective—admired
the scope of Strauss’s musical talent, he found the composer intolerably coarse
in sensibility from the beginning of their professional relationship, and was slow
to acknowledge Strauss’s superior sense of theatrical effectiveness. Even as late
as 1927, when the pair were finishing up their work on Die Ägyptische Helena,
their fifth opera, Hofmannsthal was ever ready to explode at what he took to be
the more insensitive of Strauss’s demands for changes.
But by the time they began to make some headway with the project that
was to become Arabella, Hofmannsthal had learned to control his impatience
better, to assert himself whenever he thought his ideas superior to Strauss’s
but to do so in a more flexible and productive way than before. “I am by no
means annoyed by your letters and suggestions,” he replied to Strauss when
asked for greater liveliness in the action of Arabella, “they are, on the contrary,
of real service to me.” Some of his old scorn flashed out in response to the
composer’s suggestion that what they might use in the second act of Arabella
was “a colossal ballet” based on South Slav folk tunes. “By now,” Hofmannsthal
responded acidly, “I have come to regret my premature description which
has led your fantasy, busy and active as it is, along the wrong track.” But such
reactions were by then rare.
Strauss took Hofmannsthal’s rebuke in good humor, but he continued to
ask, in his own sometimes insensitive way, for what he most needed: characters
about whom he could care, diverse and interesting situations, a drama, not of
metaphysical speculation, but of down-to-earth situations. Though intrigued by
many features of Hofmannsthal’s evolving libretto, as time went on the composer

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 Program Note CONTINUED

felt that something fundamental was lacking. Only after much thought and
uncertainty did he realize that the difficulty was central and concerned the heroine
herself, whom, as he wrote to Hofmannsthal, he suddenly found, “altogether
too flat and psychologically insignificant.” Directed to the source of the trouble,
Hofmannsthal was able to proceed, if not more smoothly than before, at least
more purposefully, and after a great deal more work he was finally able to bring
Acts II and III into focus in a way that met with the composer’s approval.
Through Strauss’s insistence, Hofmannsthal could at last discover the
destiny of the figures whom he had found haunting his imagination so many
months before, when he first developed the idea for Arabella. These characters
derived mainly from Lucidor, a short story he had outlined years earlier. The
most important of them were a pair of sisters—Arabella, the elder one, as
Hofmannsthal wrote to Strauss, “dazzling,” and Lucile, the younger, “softer and
more humble”—balanced by a pair of suitors. One of these men, who figured
in Lucidor, had lost his heart to the older sister, who, however, did not return his
love. Instead, he was loved in secret by the younger sister (who, for reasons of
familial expediency, was dressed by her widowed mother as a boy, under the
name Lucidor). Lucile/Lucidor wrote letters to the suitor in Arabella’s name and
arranged an assignation in a dark bedroom, in which she took her sister’s place.
The other suitor, at first a Tyrolean, half peasant, half gentleman, soon began
to turn into a character “from a half-alien world (Croatia), half-buffo and yet a
grand fellow, capable of deep feelings, wild and gentle, almost daemonic…”
From the beginning, Hofmannsthal pictured the first as a high tenor and the
second as a baritone. They would eventually be called Matteo and Mandryka,
and the younger sister became Zdenka.
Now that the last two acts had found their true shape, both Strauss and
Hofmannsthal understood for the first time what became of the story’s
protagonists. There remained the task of discovering the springs of their
behavior, the psychology and traits of character that lead them to behave in the
way that had been marked out for them. The collaborators knew their characters’
destiny—now they had to find out exactly who they were.
At the beginning of July 1929, almost two years after the idea of Arabella
first surfaced, Hofmannsthal sent the composer a completely reconceived first
act, much simpler in action than any of the earlier versions, and showing, in
Hofmannsthal’s words, “the character of Arabella more definitely in the center.”
But even then Strauss was not satisfied: still missing was a monologue for
Arabella herself, something introspective and lyrical with which to bring down
the curtain on Act I.
In part, no doubt, the composer was influenced by his lifelong love affair
with the soprano voice, for him the most expressive as well as sensuous of
all the musical means as his disposal. In Der Rosenkavalier, the first Strauss-

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 Hofmannsthal collaboration to be based on an original libretto, the psychological
understanding communicated to the audience by the Marschallin’s monologue
at the close of Act I irradiates the rest of the opera. The same could be done for
Arabella, Strauss believed, and he asked his librettist for a “great contemplative
solo scene” with which the heroine might end the first act. Strauss’s music rose
magnificently to the opportunities offered by Hofmannsthal’s lines, beginning
“Mein Elemer!,” and the essential features of the heroine’s character remain with
us throughout the events that follow—above all, the idealism and purity of soul
that make her yearn, not merely for a husband, but for a soulmate.
A particularly fascinating aspect of the final collaboration of these two
complementary geniuses is that Strauss’s insistence on using elements of popular
theater lends the work its psychological complexity. It was the composer, for
example, who suggested that Mandryka should overhear the assignation given
to Matteo by Zdenka in her sister’s name. Only through Hofmannsthal’s gift for
language could Strauss find the long-breathed lyricism that would transfigure
his heroine, her sister, and her suitor into such memorable creatures. And only
through Strauss’s sense of theater could Hofmannsthal discover the true nature
of his characters’ inner lives.
—Dale Harris

Visit metopera.org 41
The Cast

Philippe Auguin
conductor (nice, france)

this season Madama Butterfly and Arabella at the Met, Tristan und Isolde and Die
Zauberflöte for Washington National Opera, La Bohème and Tosca for the Vienna State
Opera.
met appearances Tosca, Die Frau ohne Schatten, La Bohème, Lohengrin, and Doktor
Faust (debut, 2001).
career highlights He is music director of Washington National Opera and Orchestre
Philharmonique de Nice, and in recent seasons in Washington has conducted Don
Giovanni, Manon Lescaut, Nabucco, Così fan tutte, Lucia di Lammermoor, Salome, and
Götterdämmerung. He has also led Die Tote Stadt and La Forza del Destino at the Vienna
State Opera, Tannhäuser for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Traviata for Opera Australia,
Manon at Buenos Aires’s Teatro Colón, and has conducted at all the leading German opera
houses including those of Munich, Dresden, Hamburg, Leipzig, and Stuttgart. Orchestral
engagements include appearances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, Orchestre
National de France, Dresden Staatskapelle, and London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Juliane Banse
soprano ( zurich, switzerland)

this season Zdenka in Arabella for her debut at the Met, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus with
Lyric Opera of Chicago, and concerts with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Munich Radio
Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and a US tour with the Vienna Philharmonic.
career highlights The German-born soprano made her stage debut as Pamina in Die
Zauberflöte with Berlin’s Komische Oper, and has sung the title role in the world premiere
of Heinz Holliger’s Snow White and Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Zurich, the
Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro for her debut at the Salzburg Festival, Leonore in Fidelio
at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, and Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito and the Daughter in
Hindemith’s Cardillac at the Vienna State Opera.

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 The Cast CONTINUED

Malin Byström
soprano (helsingborg , sweden)

this season The title role of Arabella at the Met, the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro in
Geneva, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte at Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, and Donna Anna in
Don Giovanni at Covent Garden.
met appearances Marguerite in Faust (debut, 2011).
career highlights Recent performances include the title role of Thaïs at Valencia’s Palau
de les Artes, Marguerite and Fiordiligi at Covent Garden, the Countess at the Aix-en-
Provence Festival, and Amelia in Simon Boccanegra at the Göteborg Opera. She has also
sung Romilda in Serse with Stockholm’s Royal Opera, Mathilde in Guillaume Tell in concert
in Rome and London, Hélène in Les Vêpres Siciliennes in Geneva, Donna Anna for her 2011
Salzburg Festival debut, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow in Montpellier, the Countess
and Marguerite with the Göteborg Opera, Agathe in Der Freischütz in Bregenz, Amalia
in I Masnadieri at Covent Garden, Musetta in La Bohème in Mannheim and Bregenz, and
Fiordiligi and the title role of Massenet’s Manon with Opera North.

Audrey Luna
soprano (salem, oregon)

this season The Fiakermilli in Arabella at the Met, the Queen of the Night in The Magic
Flute with the Pittsburgh Opera, the title role of Lakmé for her debut with Opéra de
Montréal, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with Virginia Opera, and Madame Mao in
Adams’s Nixon in China with Ireland’s Wide Open Opera.
met performances Ariel in Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, Najade in Ariadne auf Naxos, and
the Queen of the Night (debut, 2010).
career highlights Recent performances include Ariel with the Quebec Opera and in
concert with Rome’s Santa Cecilia Orchestra, the Queen of the Night with Lyric Opera of
Chicago, Madame Mao with Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and her Carnegie Hall debut in
George Crumb’s Star Child with the American Symphony Orchestra. She has also sung the
title role of Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Naples, Venus in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre
in concert with the New York Philharmonic, Gilda in Rigoletto with San Antonio Opera,
Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Opera Memphis, and the Queen of the Night with the
Rome Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Pittsburgh Opera.

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 Catherine Wyn-Rogers
mezzo - soprano (chesterfield, england)

this season Adelaide in Arabella for her debut at the Met, Bianca in The Rape of Lucretia
for her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival, and Micah in Handel’s Samson at Boston’s
Symphony Hall with Harry Christophers and the Period Instrument Orchestra and Choir.
career highlights Recent performances include Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro at the
Verbier Festival, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra,
and Mrs. Sedley in Peter Grimes at the Aldeburgh Festival and for her debut at La Scala.
She has also sung Erda and Waltraute in Wagner’s Ring cycle in Valencia and Florence,
Sosostris in Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage with Lyric Opera of Chicago, and
Magdalene in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Cornelia in Giulio Cesare, Genéviève
in Pelléas et Mélisande, Auntie in Peter Grimes, First Norn in Götterdämmerung, and
Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried at Covent Garden. She has also appeared at English
National Opera, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Houston Grand
Opera, and at the Salzburg Festival.

Roberto Saccà
tenor (sendenhorst, germany)

this season Matteo in Arabella for his debut at the Met, Walther in Die Meistersinger von
Nürnberg in Zurich, the title role of Lohengrin in Düsseldorf, and Bacchus in Ariadne auf
Naxos at Covent Garden.
career highlights He has recently sung Don José in Carmen at the Deutsche Oper Berlin,
Bacchus in Hamburg, the title role of Idomeneo in Frankfurt, and Walther in Amsterdam
and at the Salzburg Festival. He has also sung the title role of Werther at the Vienna State
Opera, the title role of Peter Grimes in Düsseldorf, Alexei in Prokofiev’s The Gambler at
Covent Garden, Walter in Weinberg’s The Passenger at the Bregenz Festival, and the
title role of Pfitzner’s Palestrina in Hamburg and Zurich. Additional performances include
Tamino in Die Zauberflöte with the Dallas Opera, the title role of Lucio Silla at the Salzburg
Festival and in Venice, the Duke in Rigoletto in Turin, and Alfredo in La Traviata at Tokyo’s
New National Theatre.

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 The Cast CONTINUED

Michael Volle
baritone (freudenstadt, germany)

this season Mandryka in Arabella for his debut at the Met, Montfort in Les Vêpres
Siciliennes at Covent Garden, the title role of Der Fliegende Holländer with the Deutsche
Oper Berlin, Zurga in Les Pêcheurs de Perles and Rodrigo in Don Carlo in Zurich, and the
title role of Guillaume Tell at the Munich Festival.
career highlights From 2007 to 2012 he was a member of Munich’s Bavarian State Opera
where he has sung Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde,
Amfortas in Parsifal, and the title roles of Wozzeck and Eugene Onegin. From 1999 to 2007
he was a member of the Zurich Opera where his new productions included Beckmesser in
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Eugene Onegin, Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande, Barak
in Die Frau ohne Schatten, Wolfram in Tannhäuser, and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger
von Nürnberg. He has also appeared at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Paris Opera,
and the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals.

Martin Winkler
bass - baritone (bregenz , austria )

this season Waldner in Arabella for his debut at the Met, Orest in Elektra in Warsaw, and
Alberich in Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festival.
career highlights Klingsor in Parsifal in Stockholm, Stuttgart, and Tallinn, Alberich in
Bucharest and for his 2013 debut at the Bayreuth Festival, the title role in the world
premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Gogol at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, Nekrotzar in Ligeti’s
Le Grand Macabre at Berlin’s Komische Oper, the title role of Wozzeck in Graz, and Simone
in Zemlinsky’s Florentine Tragedy in Lyon. He has been a member of the Vienna Volksoper
since 2009, where his roles include Don Pizarro in Fidelio, Dr. Bartolo in Il Barbiere di
Siviglia, the title role of Gianni Schicchi, Frank in Die Fledermaus, Kaspar in Der Freischütz,
and Kecal in The Bartered Bride.

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