During its fourth season on SIRIUS XM, Metropolitan Opera Radio will also air rare archival broadcasts from the Met’s 78-year broadcast history. Host Margaret Juntwait returns as announcer for the channel which, in addition to the three live performances each week, will air notable performances from recent seasons, and will include several title premieres including Giordano’s Fedora and Janacek’s The Makropulos Case.

In addition to the season opening of Tosca, the SIRIUS XM broadcast schedule features live, opening night premiere broadcasts of six more productions in 2009-10: Janacek’s From the House of the Dead on Thursday, November 12, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, making his Met debut, and starring Peter Mattei; Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann on Thursday, December 3, conducted by Maestro Levine and starring Joseph Calleja and Anna Netrebko; Bizet’s Carmen on December 31 conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin and starring Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna; Shostakovich’s The Nose on Friday, March 5, conducted by Valery Gergiev and starring Paulo Szot. On March 16 Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet makes its broadcast premiere with celebrated singing actors Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay bringing their acclaimed portrayals of the title role and Ophelie, respectively. Louis Langree conducts. The final SIRIUS XM broadcast premiere of the season is Rossini’s Armida on April 12, starring Renee Fleming in the virtuosic role of the alluring sorceress. Riccardo Frizza conducts.

Lastly, SIRIUS XM’s Metropolitan Opera Radio will broadcast a special debut encore broadcast of the Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala from March 15, 2009 on Saturday, September 19 at 9:00 pm ET.

A schedule of this season’s Metropolitan Opera Radio broadcasts on SIRIUS XM is available at www.sirius.com/metropolitanoperaradio or www.xmradio.com/metopera.

For more information about the Metropolitan Opera, please visit www.metopera.org.

It will broadcast its third season live from the Metropolitan Opera
beginning with Opening Night on Monday, September 22 and will include
127 live performances during the Met’s 2008-2009 season.

The season will start with the Met’s Opening Night Gala on Monday,
September 22, on Metropolitan Opera Radio SIRIUS channel 78. Coverage
of opening night will begin with an overview of the evening’s red
carpet events, backstage interviews and a season preview starting at 6
pm ET. Met Opera Radio’s Opening Night Gala will star Renee Fleming
performing in some of her most acclaimed roles, beginning with Act II
of Verdi’s La Traviata, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine,
and continuing with Act III of Massenet’s Manon, conducted by Marco
Armiliato, and the final scene of Richard Strauss’s one act opera,
Capriccio, conducted by Patrick Summers.

Highlights
of the Met Opera Radio 2008-09 schedule include every season premiere
and all six of the Met’s new productions: the Met premiere of John
Adams’s opera about the creation of the atomic bomb, Doctor Atomic;
Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust; Massenet’s Thais; Puccini’s La
Rondine; Verdi’s Il Trovatore; and Bellini’s La Sonnambula. Host
Margaret Juntwait along with Will Berger will return to the Met Opera
Radio channel.

A schedule of this season’s Metropolitan Opera Radio broadcasts on SIRIUS is available at www.sirius.com/metropolitanoperaradio.

For more information about the Metropolitan Opera, please visit www.metopera.org