On March 23, 2019 Riccardo Massi will return to the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow to sing Des Grieux in the Adolf Shapiro production of Manon Lescaut. Anton Grishanin will conduct. Massi will be joined by Elena Razgulyaeva as the title role; Maxim Aniston as Lescaut; Vyacheslav Pochapsky as Geronte; and Giorgi Sturua as Edmondo.

The Bolshoi’s Shapiro staging of Manon Lescaut has special significance for Riccardo Massi: it was in this production that he made both his role debut as Des Grieux and his Bolshoi house debut. That same year, 2016, Massi premiered another new production of Manon Lescaut, by Mara Kurotschka and Jürgen Flimm, at the Staatsoper den Linden in Berlin. This will be his fourth time singing in the Shapiro production, having returned to it following the premiere in the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 seasons, as well as in the fall of 2018.

After this production, Massi will sing Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and Pollione in Norma at the Bavarian State Opera, as well as Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Semperoper Dresden and the Washington National Opera.