Hello, Bernadette!

Bernadette Peters, the much-loved and much-honored star of Broadway musical theater, will succeed Bette Midler in the title role of “Hello, Dolly!”

Victor Garber will join Ms. Peters, playing the man she fancies, Horace Vandergelder. That role is currently played by David Hyde Pierce.

Both performers will join the production on Jan. 20. Ms. Midler and Mr. Hyde Pierce will play their final performances Jan. 14, after which the show will be dark for a few days.

Recasting the role of Dolly was a high-stakes affair for the producers, and luring Ms. Peters appears to be a coup. She is a two-time Tony winner, for “Song and Dance” in 1986 and for “Annie Get Your Gun” in 1999, and a key interpreter of musicals by Stephen Sondheim. In 2010 Ms. Peters also replaced Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Broadway revival of “A Little Night Music.”