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entrepreneurs like you sign up for your one dollar a month trial at shopify.com slash setup Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of Egypt podcast. Today I have a special surprise.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York is running a new production of Philip Glass's 1983 opera

Akhnautin. In a surprising bit of Philip Glass's 1983 opera, Arcanatan.

In a surprising bit of coincidence, the opera is running from November 8th to December 7th,

and it just so happens to coincide with our exploration of Arcanaten and his wonderful reign.

The production is led by Phileem McDermott, a well-respected stage director who has previously

produced this opera in 2016 for the English National Opera. He has also led productions of Aida by

Giuseppe Verde, Kossi Fantuti by Mozart, a Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare,

and the Adams Family Musical. Needless to say, Mr. McDermott

is well equipped to present this opera, and as you will hear from the cast, his directions have

been invaluable in bringing Akanatin to life. The opera is conducted by Karen Kemensek, who also

conducted it in 2017, for which she won the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production.

The 2019 Met Opera Season of Aknatan promises to be a spectacular show, with virtuoso

performances and costumes to die for. Notably, the production is running from November 8th to

December 7th in New York, And if you can't make it to

New York to see the performance in person, there will be cinema screenings of the opera recorded live

in the forthcoming months. Now, as part of the preparations for the opera's debut, I was contacted

by one of the performers, Zachary James, who plays Amun Hotep III and the scribal narrator of the events.

With Zachary's help and the generous support of the team at the Metropolitan Opera,

we were able to arrange a roundtable interview with the four stars of this production.

I'm pleased to present a discussion with Anthony Roth Costanzo, who plays Aknatan,

...