Photo by Dario Acosta
The 37th annual Richard Tucker Opera Gala on Thursday will honor the memory of the great tenor (1913-1975) by enhancing careers and celebrating today's stars.
The program will be telecast at 6:30 p.m. EST from Avery Fisher Hall on PBS. Locally, KQED ch. 9 will show the program at noon on Sunday; KQED Life at 7 p.m. Monday.
Performances are scheduled by Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Gerald Finley, Olga Borodina, Marcello Giordani, Ildar Abdrazakov, Erwin Schrott, and (2005 Merolina) Ailyn Pérez, 33, first Latina to win the Richard Tucker Award.
Audra McDonald will host the telecast, which includes a feature on Pérez, and backstage interviews with the artists, including tenor Stephen Costello, Pérez's husband.
Patrick Summers conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Choral Society in selections by Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Massenet, Mascagni, Handel, and Wagner.
Former Tucker winners include Renée Fleming, David Daniels, Joyce DiDonato (Merola 1997), Deborah Voigt (1985), Lawrence Brownlee, and Angela Meade.