Carlos, the Prince of Asturias, is engaged to France’s Élisabeth de Valois, but the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis called for Élisabeth to marry Carlos’ father, Philippe of Spain. Six superior singers are essential: a soprano (Sonya Yoncheva), mezzo-soprano (Jamie Barton), tenor (Matthew Polenzani), baritone (Etienne Dupuis) and two basses (Eric Owens and John Relyea).įamily drama worthy of a Netflix series is wedged in.

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The Met has also restored many elements of the original.

The Met’s adaptation uses the original libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle that includes elements of Friedrich Schiller’s “Don Carlos” plus a first act in the Fontainebleau forest and a third act burning of heretics based on Eugène Cormon’s play “Philippe II, Roi d’Espagne.” “Don Carlos,” Verdi’s second Paris commission after “Les vêpres siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers)” in 1855, adhered to the grand opera form Parisians demanded: five acts, including a ballet. In Italian, of course, consonants are important but it’s rooted much more into vowel.” And I feel that this changes subtly but consistently the impression that the listener will have when listening to a great melody by Verdi.

“The consonants are very expressive in French. “The color of the language is more rooted in what we do in French,” said Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s French-Canadian music director. The Metropolitan Opera is presenting the original French version for the first time starting Monday night after 217 performances of the extensively revised and translated Italian version more familiar as “Don Carlo.” The eighth and final performance on March 26 will be broadcast to cinemas worldwide.

Don carlos met opera review