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Tune In Saturday At Noon For A Live Broadcast Of Humperdinck's 'Hansel and Gretel'

Cory Weaver
/
Metropolitan Opera

The 2014-15 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues with a live broadcast of Humperdinck’sHansel and Gretel. The performance, sung in English and presented as part of the Met's holiday series, stars soprano Heidi Stober as Gretel; mezzo-soprano Christine Rice in her network broadcast debut as Hansel; tenor Robert Brubaker as the wicked Witch who captures them; and Michaela Martens and Dwayne Croft as the parents of the wayward children; Sir Andrew Davis conducts. Hansel and Gretel was the opera that inaugurated the Met's long-running series of live matinee radio broadcasts, on Christmas Day, 1931. Hansel and Gretel will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at at 12:00 p.m. CT on Saturday, January 3.

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Heidi Stober made her Met debut as Gretel in 2011 and returned in 2013 as Pamina in the Met’s holiday presentation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Later this season, she will sing Oscar in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera at the Met and at San Francisco Opera. Her recent performances have included Magnolia in Kern's Show Boat and Nannetta in Verdi’s Falstaff at San Francisco Opera; Adina in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at Deutsche Oper Berlin; and Ada Leverson in the world premiere of Theodore Morrison’s Oscar at Santa Fe Opera.

Christine Rice made her first appearance with the company in a 2011 MET Orchestra concert at Carnegie Hall, singing the world premiere of John Harbison and Alice Munro’s Closer To My Own Life. She has also performed the role of Hansel with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, where her other roles have included the title character in Bizet’s Carmen, Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlo, and Ariadne in Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur. This January, she will return to the Met as Giulietta in Offenbach's Les Contes d’Hoffmann.

The Witch is one of twelve roles Robert Brubaker has sung at the Met, where his recent repertory also includes Mime in Wagner’s Ring cycle, Malatestino in Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, and Mao Tse-tung in the company premiere of John Adams’s Nixon in China. His other engagements this season include Herod in Strauss's Salome at Dallas Opera and Santa Fe Opera and Begearss in Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles at Los Angeles Opera.

Michaela Martens most recently starred as Marilyn Klinghoffer in the Met premiere of John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer earlier this season. She has sung six previous roles at the Met, including Kundry in the 2013 new production of Wagner’s Parsifal; Alisa in the new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor that opened the season in 2007; and the Second Norn in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. In February, she will appear with the company as Judith in a new production of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle.

Dwayne Croft has sung 30 roles at the Met since his company debut in 1990, including Peter in 2009 and 2010. He has performed on the Met stage most frequently as Sharpless in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Marcello in Puccini's La Bohème, Germont in Verdi's La Traviata, and Figaro in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Later this season, he will appear as de Brétigny in a revival of Massenet’s Manon.

The intermission will include backstage interview with the stars.

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