Renee Fleming Sings Her First Full Met Performance of Richard Strauss's Capriccio on THIRTEEN's Great Performances at the Met

Sunday, August 14 at 12 p.m. ET on PBS

Andrew Davis conducts Richard Strauss's final opera, a romantic and philosophical battle between words and music

NEW YORK, July 22, 2011/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Renee Fleming sings one of her signature roles, the elegant Countess in Richard Strauss's Capriccio, on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, August 14 at 12 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). Fleming had sung the demanding final scene of the opera in a gala opening the Met's 2008-09 season, but this past season's performances were her first time singing the full opera with the company. She has sung the Countess to wide acclaim in other venues, most recently at the Vienna State Opera in 2010. Andrew Davis, who led the Met premiere of the opera in 1998, returned to conduct its first revival.

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In New York, THIRTEEN will premiere the production on Thursday, August 11 at 8 p.m. The telecast was originally seen live in movie theaters on April 23, 2011 as part of the groundbreaking series, The Met: Live in HD, which transmits live performances to more than 1500 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 46 countries around the world.

Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America's most prolific and respected public media providers. For more than 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local arts programming to the New York community.

Capriccio also stars Joseph Kaiser as the composer Flamand, Russell Braun as the poet Olivier, Sarah Connolly as Clairon, Morten Frank Larsen in his Met debut as the Count, Peter Rose as the flamboyant La Roche, and Barry Banks and Olga Makarina as a temperamental Italian tenor and soprano; all are making Met role debuts.

In Capriccio, Strauss uses the romantic indecision of the widowed Countess—who is pursued by both a composer and a poet—as the opportunity for a sophisticated, breezy examination of aesthetics. The Countess wonders which is more important to musical drama: the music or the written word? The opera's supporting characters, including the actress Clairon, the stage director La Roche, and the Countess's love-struck brother, amplify and explore this central artistic question.

The New York Times, reviewing the current revival, said Fleming "sang splendidly… [her] voice was plush and alluring; her phrasing noble…the performance over all, sensitively conducted by Andrew Davis and featuring a winning cast, made an excellent case for this Strauss curiosity." The Associated Press added "[Fleming's] performance has a grace and charisma that are quite winning…bringing to life the poignant dilemma of a woman who must choose between two suitors and in doing so pronounce a verdict on their art."

John Cox's production, which updates the setting to the twentieth century, was created for the opera's 1998 Met premiere. The staging features sets by Mauro Pagano, interior decor and costume design by Robert Perdziola, and lighting design by Duane Schuler.

Joyce DiDonato, star of the Met's hit new production of Le Comte Ory, also seen on Great Performances at the Met this summer, is the host for Capriccio. Gary Halvorson directs the transmission and Jay David Saks is music producer.

Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and Joseph A. Wilson. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America's luxury home builder®.

Visit Great Performances online at www.pbs.org/gperf for additional information on this and other Great Performances programs.

For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O'Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

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About the Met
Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Met has a series of bold initiatives underway that are designed to broaden its audience and revitalize the company's repertory. The Met has made a commitment to presenting modern masterpieces alongside the classic repertory, with highly theatrical productions featuring the greatest opera stars in the world. The Met's 2011-12 season features seven new productions, including: the world premiere of The Enchanted Island, a Baroque pastiche with an original libretto by Jeremy Sams set to the music of Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, and others; the Met premiere of Donizetti's Anna Bolena directed by David McVicar; and the final two installments of Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung, directed by Robert Lepage and conducted by Maestro Levine. The first complete performances of the new Ring cycle are scheduled for April and May 2012. The season also features new productions of three repertory classics by outstanding directors—Mozart's Don Giovanni by Michael Grandage, Gounod's Faust by Des McAnuff, and Massenet's Manon by Laurent Pelly.

Building on its 81-year-old radio broadcast history—heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network—the Met uses advanced media distribution platforms and state-of-the-art technology to reach audiences around the world. The Met: Live in HD, the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series of live performance transmissions to movie theaters around the world, returns for its sixth season in 2011-12. The series of 11 transmissions begins October 15 with Anna Bolena and ends with La Traviata on April 14. The Met recently introduced Met Player, a new subscription service that makes much of its extensive video and audio catalog of full-length performances available to the public for the first time online, and in exceptional, state-of-the-art quality. Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS XM broadcasts live performances from the Met stage three times a week during the opera season, as well; the Met on Rhapsody on-demand service offers audio recordings; and the Met presents free live audio streaming of performances on its website once every week during the opera season.

The Met has launched several audience development initiatives, including Open House dress rehearsals, a popular rush ticket program, Gallery Met, and an annual Holiday Series presentation for families. For more information, please visit: www.metopera.org.

SOURCE Thirteen/WNET New York