The casts.(singers, conductors during 2004-05 Metropolitan Opera season)

Maria Guleghina (Tosca) tackled Abigaille in Vienna Nabuccos last December, then remained with the company as Maddalena in Andrea Chenier, her Met debut role in 1991. Last month, she repeated her Abigaille at the Met. The soprano from Odessa, Ukraine, next returns to Vienna for more Toscas. She sings Elena in Washington Vespris next fall.

Milanese tenor Salvatore Licitra (Cavaradossi) spent February in Vienna as Pollione before returning to the Met this month to reprise Cavaradossi, the role that introduced him to the company in 2002. He takes up Puccini's revolutionary again in May for Washington National Opera.

James Conlon (conductor, Tosca), music director of Cincinnati's May Festival and Illinois's Ravinia Festival, assumes that title with Los Angeles Opera in 2006. The New York native, who bowed at the Met with Zauberflote in 1976, alternates performances of Tosca and Un Ballo in Maschera with the company this month. In May, he opens Florence's Maggio Musicale with Khovanshchina.

Met debutante Lisa Milne (Pamina) was in Glasgow and Edinburgh last month as Handel's Semele with Scottish Opera. The soprano from Aberdeen, Scotland, gives a recital in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall (April 21), then joins the London Symphony at the Brighton Festival for Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony (May 7) before taking her Pamina to Glyndebourne.

Erika Miklosa (Queen of the Night) makes her first Met appearances this season. She sang Mozart's Queen earlier this year for Paris Opera and repeats it in Baden-Baden in May and again at Madrid's Teatro Real in June. The soprano hails from Kiskunhalas, Hungary.

Matthew Polenzani (Tamino). See profile, p. 28.

Weimar-born baritone Matthias Goerne (Papageno) returns to the Met in the role of his 1998 company debut. He was Allazim in Zaide in Salzburg, Cologne, Baden-Baden and Zurich in January and devotes much of the rest of the season to recitals. Upcoming stops include Milan, Turin, Prague and Graz.