Diana Damrau Sings Her First-Ever Performances of Violetta in The Met's LA TRAVIATA

Diana Damrau will make her role debut as the courtesan Violetta in La Traviata, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin in his first Met performances of the Verdi tragedy. Saimir Pirgu sings Violetta's lover Alfredo, and Plácido Domingo sings the role of Alfredo's father, Giorgio Germont, in this revival of Willy Decker's 2010 production. This season's performances will be Damrau's first time singing the role of Violetta anywhere, while Domingo will move from the tenor role of Alfredo, which he has sung at the Met numerous times since 1970, to the baritone role of Giorgio.

Diana Damrau, who sang Gilda in the new production premiere of Verdi's Rigoletto earlier this year, has sung at the Met every season since her 2005 debut as Zerbinetta in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. Her performances with the company have included Rosina in the new production premiere of Rossini's IL Barbiere di Siviglia and Countess Adèle in the Met premiere of his Le Comte Ory; Aithra in the new production premiere of Strauss's Die Ägyptische Helena; both Pamina and the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Konstanze in his Die Entführung aus dem Serail;the title roles in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and La Fille du Régiment and Adina in his L'Elisir d'Amore; and Gilda, which she also sang at the Met in 2009. Next season at the Met, she will make her company role debut as Amina in Bellini's La Sonnambula.

Plácido Domingo has sung more than 650 performances at the Met in an extensive and continuously expanding repertory. In recent seasons, he has sung King Neptune in the world premiere of the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island; Oreste in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride; the title role in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra; Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre; Maurizio in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur; Emperor Qin in the world premiere of Tan Dun's The First Emperor; and the title role in the U.S. premiere of Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac. Also a conductor, Domingo has led more than 140 Met performances since 1984, most recently Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and Verdi's Stiffelio. He first sang Alfredo at the Met in 1970 in a cast that included Joan Sutherland as Violetta, and repeated the role in 1973 and 1981. Next season, Domingo returns to the role of King Neptune in the first Met revival of The Enchanted Island.