Sher, who is currently represented on Broadway with the acclaimed Lincoln Center Theater production of The Light in the Piazza, will make his Met debut with Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The Rossini opera, which is scheduled to begin performances Nov. 10, will also feature the Piazza design team: Michael Yeargan (set design), Catherine Zuber (costume design) and Christopher Akerlind (lighting design). The cast will include Diana Damrau as Rosina, Juan Diego Flórez as Count Almaviva with Peter Mattei as Figaro, John Del Carlo as Dr. Bartolo and Samuel Ramey as Don Basilio. Maurizio Benini conducts.

O'Brien, whose current Broadway work includes Hairspray and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, will stage Puccini's Il Trittico. The creative team will also include Douglas W. Schmidt (set design), Jess Goldstein (costume design) and Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer (lighting design). Maestro Levine will conduct the opera, which will premiere April 20, 2007. The cast is scheduled to feature Barbara Frittoli, Maria Guleghina, Olga Mykytenko, Stephanie Blythe, Massimo Giordano, Salvatore Licitra, Alessandro Corbelli and Juan Pons.

Jack O'Brien won Tony Awards for his direction of Hairspray and Henry IV. He was also Tony-nominated for his work on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Invention of Love, The Full Monty, Two Shakespearean Actors and Porgy and Bess. O'Brien has been the artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, since 1981.

For his work on The Light in the Piazza, Bartlett Sher was nominated for Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. His other directorial credits include Waste, Cymbeline, Don Juan and Pericles. As artistic director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre, his productions there included Homebody/Kabul, Nora, Arms and the Man, Cymbeline and Titus Andronicus, The Dying Gaul, The Servant of Two Masters, Our Town and Three Sisters. His regional credits include Nickel and Dimed and Singing Forest. Sher also staged the opera Mourning Becomes Electra.

For more information visit www.metopera.org.