Metropolitan Opera Radio is an all-

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting 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 rad ...

Sirius Satellite Radio Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio ( SDARS) service that operated in the United States and Canada. Sirius launched in 2002, and primarily competed with XM Satellite Radio, until the two services merged in 2008 to form Sirius XM. Li ...

channel 75 (previously 78) and

XM Satellite Radio XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (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 ...

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 L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

channel 6078. It carries live broadcasts from the

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

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 archives. The channel's host and announcer for the live broadcasts is Mary Jo Heath. The producers are Ellen Keel, John Bischoff, Matthew Principe, with William Berger as writer and commentator.

Jay David Saks Jay David Saks (24 January 1945 – 16 November 2024) was an American music producer. Biography Born in New York City, Saks grew up in The Bronx. His older sister was the cellist Toby Saks. He studied at the Juilliard School, and later contin ...

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 Lu ...

'', 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 ...

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

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. It starred Chilean soprano Cristina Gallardo-Domâs 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 as Sharpless. Metropolitan Opera Radio replaced the existing "

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" 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 (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

and

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programming (such as German

lieder In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...

and French

Chansons A (, ; , ) is generally any lyric-driven French song. The term is most commonly used in English to refer either to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music or to a specific style of French pop music which e ...

). 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 Ope ...

'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,

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, 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. 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