Dwayne Croft and Ildar Abdrazakov to Play 'Escamillo' in The Met's CARMEN, Feb-March 2013

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In this evening's performance of Bizet's Carmen, Hei-Kyung Hong sang Micaëla, replacing Ekaterina Scherbachenko, who is ill.

Casting is also announced for the role of Escamillo for this season's remaining performances of Carmen. DWayne Croft will sing the role on February 20, 26, and March 1, and Ildar Abdrazakov will sing the role on February 23 matinee, a performance that will be broadcast around the world over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Radio Network.

Hong sang Micaëla at the Met for the first time in 1996 and has since sung the role more than 30 times, most recently in last Saturday evening's performance. Earlier this season, she sang the Countess in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, another role she has sung often at the Met. Her company repertory includes 23 roles, and in recent seasons, she has sung Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata, Mimì in Puccini's La Bohème, and Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette.

Croft sang his first Met performance of Escamillo in 2010 and repeated the role earlier in the current season. Also this season, he sang Ping in Puccini's Turandot, Coroebus in Berlioz's Les Troyens, and Rambaldo in Puccini's La Rondine; this spring, he will sing Donner in three complete cycles of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. He has sung 30 roles with the company, including Figaro in IL Barbiere di Siviglia, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Pelléas in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, and the title roles in Don Giovanni and Britten's Billy Budd.

Abdrazakov last sang Escamillo at the Met in the 2004-05 season. Earlier this season, he made company role debuts as the title characters in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. He has sung 14 roles at the Met, including the title role in the company premiere of Verdi's Attila; Enrico in the company premiere of Donizetti's Anna Bolena; Dosifei in Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina; the Four Villains in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann; and Méphistophélès in both Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust and Gounod's Faust.

Carmen, conducted by Michele Mariotti, also stars Anita Rachvelishvili in the title role and Nikolai Schukoff and Andrew Richards (in his Met debut, February 26 and March 1) as Don José. As previously announced, DWayne Croft also sings Escamillo in the February 13 and 16 performances.