Metropolitan Opera Radio is an all-

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

Sirius Satellite Radio Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Holdings. Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis, Sirius ...

channel 75 (previously 78) and

XM Satellite Radio XM Satellite Radio (XM) was one of the three satellite radio ( SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable television. Its se ...

channel 75 (previously 79). Originally on channel 85, Met Opera Radio was shifted to channel 78 on June 24, 2008. In December 2020 it was moved again — this time to channel 355. It is also on

Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...

channel 6078. It carries live broadcasts from the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

two to three times each week during the opera season. In addition, throughout the day performances are presented from among the 1,500 recorded broadcasts in the

Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast The Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts are a regular series of weekly broadcasts on network radio of full-length opera performances. They are transmitted live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The Metropolitan Opera I ...

archives. The channel's host and announcer for the live broadcasts is

Mary Jo Heath Mary Jo Heath (born December 11, 1954)

William Berger as writer and commentator. Jay David Saks is the audio producer.

History and description

The channel was launched at 6:30 PM, September 25, 2006 the opening night of the Met season. The first broadcast was a live performance of Puccini’s ''

Madama Butterfly ''Madama Butterfly'' (; ''Madame Butterfly'') is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is based on the short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther ...

'', conducted by

James Levine James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 1 ...

, the Met's Music Director at the time, and directed by

Anthony Minghella Anthony Minghella, (6 January 195418 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007. He won the Academy Award for Best Directo ...

. It starred Chilean soprano

Cristina Gallardo-Domâs Cristina Lourdes Gallardo-Domâs Tudezca is a soprano, born in Santiago, Chile, who frequently performs in operas by Puccini. Gallardo-Domâs made her debut as Madama Butterfly in 1990 at the Municipal Theatre of Santiago and, three years later, ...

as Cio-Cio-San, tenor

Marcello Giordani Marcello Giordani (born Marcello Guagliardo; 25 January 1963 – 5 October 2019) was an Italian operatic tenor who sang leading roles of the Italian and French repertoire in opera houses throughout Europe and the United States. He had a distinguis ...

as Pinkerton, and baritone

Dwayne Croft Dwayne Croft is an American baritone who has sung in more than 500 performances in 38 roles at the Metropolitan Opera. He won the Richard Tucker Award in 1996. He created the role of Nick Carraway in John Harbison's ''The Great Gatsby'' in 1999, ...

as Sharpless. Metropolitan Opera Radio replaced the existing "

Classical Voices ''Classical Voices'' was a station on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 86 and DISH Network channel 6086 devoted to vocal classical music. It was replaced in September 2006 by the Metropolitan Opera Radio (Sirius XM), Metropolitan Opera Radio channel ...

" channel in the Sirius channel lineup. While opera-oriented, the "Classical Voices" channel also offered some

choral music A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

and art songs programming (such as German lieder and French

Chansons A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic so ...

). The new channel was launched as part of new Met general manager

Peter Gelb Peter Gelb (born 1953) is an American arts administrator. Since August 2006, he has been General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Career Early career While in high school, Gelb began his association with the Metropolitan Opera ...

's initiative to utilize technology to make the Met's performances more accessible to a wide audience. The channel was added to the XM lineup (replacing the existing " Vox" channel) on November 12,

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, as part of the merger between Sirius and XM. Two to three live broadcasts of operas from the Met are presented each week of the Met's performing season. The performances are hosted by Mary Jo Heath with commentator William Berger. During intermissions live interviews with performers and other opera professionals and experts are interspersed with background information and informal chat by the co-hosts. During the rest of the broadcast week, many of the Met's historic archived broadcast tapes are presented. These have been collected and re-mastered by the Met's sound archive department. When presented on Sirius, the original commentaries are replaced by introductions, which include short stories on principal performers and synopsis of each act, recorded by

Margaret Juntwait Margaret Ann Juntwait (March 18, 1957 – June 3, 2015) was an American radio broadcaster, best known as the announcer of the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. After thirteen years on the air at WNYC-Radio, she debuted as the Met's announcer ...

. Of the Met's approximately 1500 archived broadcasts, Sirius's Met Opera Radio presented over 570 in its first three years.MetOpera archives (database)
/ref> Each day up to seven full length archived broadcasts are presented, starting at 6:00 AM. The channel's weekly schedule includes approximately 12 or 13 different archive recordings which are broadcast in rotation at different starting times. These broadcasts are then repeated with time-span ranging from few months to well over a year. In between the complete operas, shorter pieces of studio-recorded vocal music are presented. None of these is ever interrupted except to accommodate the start of a live broadcast. Sirius also provides the sound transmission for the Metropolitan Opera's live high-definition video opera presentations in movie theaters world wide. The traditional Metropolitan Opera Radio Network Saturday broadcasts are also presented on Sirius's Met Opera channel.

References

Sources

Adam Wasserman, "Sirius Business", ''Opera News'', December 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Metropolitan Opera Radio (Sirius Xm) Metropolitan Opera Sirius Satellite Radio channels Sirius XM Radio channels Radio stations established in 2006 Classical music radio stations in the United States

History and description

See also

References

Sources