The Metropolitan Opera has just announced that Lorin Maazel will return to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in 45 years to conduct six performances of Wagner’s Die Walküre beginning January 7, 2008. These performances will be Maazel’s first with the company since the 1962-63 season. (To give you some concept of how long ago that was, Maazel’s assignments that season included Der Rosenkavalier with Regine Crespin making her Met debut, directed by Lotte Lehmann.)

The Walküre performances run through February 9, 2008, with a cast that includes Lisa Gasteen (Brünnhilde), Adrianne Pieczonka/Deborah Voigt (Sieglinde), Stephanie Blythe/Michelle DeYoung (Fricka), Clifton Forbis/Simon Dennis O’Neill (Siegmund), James Morris (Wotan) and Mikhail Petrenko (Hunding).