Monday July 13 8:00 PM
Central Park SummerStage
New York, NY
Free tickets are required for entry. Tickets will be available at the Met Opera box office from July 6-10. For more information on how to obtain free tickets for this event, please visit metopera.org/parks beginning June 1 or call 212-362-6000. There will be no rain dates for these performances. No one will be admitted without a ticket.
The Metropolitan Opera launches its free Summer Recital Series with a special performance of opera arias and popular songs headlined by the Tony Award-winning baritone Paulo Szot and featuring Lisette Oropesa (soprano), Alek Shrader (tenor), and Vlad Iftinca (piano).
Baritone Paulo Szot won a 2008 Tony Award for his performance as Emile de Becque in the Broadway revival of South Pacific. He has appeared with major American and European opera companies, including New York City Opera, where he was heard in Carmen, L’Elisir d’Amore, and Le Nozze di Figaro. He recently made his Met debut in the leading role of William Kentridge’s new production of Shostakovich’s The Nose, conducted by Valery Gergiev.
Soprano Lisette Oropesa is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. At the Met she has appeared in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Wagner’s Ring, and Puccini’s La Rondine, which was shown live in HD in movie theaters around the world. She won the Zarzuela Award at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition in 2007 and is the recipient of a 2008 Sullivan Foundation Award. This summer she makes her debut as Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera New Jersey.
A 2007 winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, tenor Alek Shrader is currently an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera, where he made his debut this season as Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore and appeared in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt and Mozart’s Idomeneo. Future engagements include his European debut as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte in Bordeaux and appearances at Munich’s Bavarian State Opera and with the Cleveland Orchestra.
Romanian-born pianist Vlad Iftinca is a member of the Met’s music staff and the Staff Music Coach for the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. He has collaborated with artists such as Thomas Hampson, Leon Fleisher, José Luis García Asensio, and Gérard Caussé, and has appeared at the Spoleto Festival USA, the Ravinia Festival, and the Marilyn Horne Foundation Annual Gala at Carnegie Hall, among others.
NY1 is the official media sponsor for the Metropolitan Opera’s Summer Recital Series.
FREE!