Singers from the New York-based Metropolitan Opera greeted the press in Tokyo on Monday and showed that the setback of two singers pulling out after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake has not dampened the spirits of their current tour. Four replacement singers — Marina Poplavskaya, Marcelo Alvarez, Rolando Villazon and Alexey Dolgov — have taken time out of their schedules in a shuffling of the casts of the operas "La Boheme," "Don Carlo" and "Lucia di Lammermoor." The tour, now in Tokyo, runs until June 19.
The soprano Poplavskaya said that she looked forward to playing Elisabeth in "Don Carlo," describing the French princess as one of her "favorite roles."
Set in 16th-century France and Spain, Giuseppe Verdi's "Don Carlo" follows the story of Prince Carlo, who loses his betrothed love, Elisabeth, when she is forced to marry his father, the King of Spain, as a condition of a peace treaty.
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