Rossini: Semiramide(2018)

Puccini: La bohème(it)

"La Bohème" is one of Giacomo Puccini's most popular and timeless works and the second-most performed opera at New York's Metropolitan Opera. This production, directed by the legendary Franco Zeffirelli, features José Carreras, Teresa Stratas, Renata Scotto and Richard Stilwell. The opera is replete with extraordinary visual beauty as it presents the tragic story of young bohemians struggling to make it in the world.

The Metropolitan Opera: The Exterminating Angel(en)

After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with another masterpiece, this time inspired by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's seminal surrealist classic "El Ángel Exterminador", during the 2017–18 season. As the opera opens, a group of elegant socialites gather for a lavish dinner party, but when it is time to leave for the night, no one is able to escape. Soon, their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and savage. The large ensemble cast tackles both the vocal and dramatic demands of Adès's opera with one riveting performance after another. Tom Cairns, who also penned the work's libretto, directs an engrossing and inventive production, using a towering wooden archway to trap the characters onstage. And Adès himself takes the podium to conduct the frenzied score, which features a host of unconventional instruments, including the eerie electronic ondes Martenot.

Bellini: La Sonnambula(it)

Just as a young woman is about to marry her sweetheart, she is discovered—by the entire village, to say nothing of her fiancé—asleep in the bedroom of a stranger. It takes the young man two acts to figure out that sleepwalking is to blame, and everything ends happily. Natalie Dessay as Amina and Juan Diego Flórez as Elvino deliver bel canto magic and vocal fireworks in Mary Zimmerman’s 2009 production. The Tony award-winning director transfers Bellini’s bucolic tale to a rehearsal room in contemporary New York, where an opera company rehearses La Sonnambula—and where the singers are truly in love with each other.

Rossini: La Cenerentola(it)

"Irresistible" (Opera News) rising-star mezzo Elina Garanca triumphs as Rossini's Cinderella in this delightful Metropolitan Opera production. "As close to pure joy as you will find in a big-time opera house" (New Yorker), conquering audiences and critics alike, "Garanca has a gorgeous voice that she uses with exceptional skill, melting tenderness; but when the part calls for coloratura fireworks, she unleashes a flawless technique and ringing high notes of impressive power" (Associated Press). Filmed in High Definition Widescreen.

The Metropolitan Opera - Wagner: Tannhäuser(de)

As renowned for its harmonious overture as for its romantic storybook characters, this three-act masterwork features some of the composer’s most groundbreaking and unforgettable music, as well as a theme the young Wagner would revisit again and again later in his career—the redemptive and transcendent power of a woman’s love. The enchanting plot harks back to medieval history: Wolfram is a lovesick troubadour who desires the virtuous Elisabeth. She, however, has eyes for another: the rebellious knight Tannhäuser, who in turn cannot get over an overwhelming sensual experience in the realm of the goddess Venus, and is banished for singing her praises at court. Only saintly Elisabeth’s death can atone for his misdeeds.

The Metropolitan Opera: The Nose(en)

Acclaimed artist William Kentridge directed and designed this visually dazzling Met premiere production of Shostakovich’s satirical opera, adapted from the classic short story by Nikolai Gogol. Baritone Paulo Szot leads the cast as Kovalyov, the hapless bureaucrat whose nose has mysteriously gone missing. Alexander Lewis and Andrey Popov co-star, and Pavel Smelkov conducts.

The Metropolitan Opera: Werther(en)

Star tenor Jonas Kaufmann brings aching intensity and vocal charisma to the tortured title hero of Massenet’s Goethe adaptation. Sophie Koch, in her Met debut, is an appealing and elegant Charlotte, the object of Werther’s passionate affection that will lead to tragedy. Lisette Oropesa as Sophie, David Bižić as Albert, and Jonathan Summers as Le Bailli co-star. Richard Eyre’s atmospheric production is conducted by rising maestro Alain Altinoglu.

Berlioz: Les Troyens(en)

Berlioz’s epic masterpiece retells the magnificent saga of the aftermath of the Trojan War and the exploits of Aeneas. Rising tenor Bryan Hymel, in his Met debut, stars as the hero charged by the gods with the founding of the city of Rome. Susan Graham is Dido, Queen of Carthage, who becomes Aeneas’s lover, and Deborah Voigt sings Cassandra, the Trojan princess whose warnings about the impending destruction of Troy go unheeded. Francesca Zambello’s atmospheric production, featuring choreography by Doug Varone, is led by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi.

Aida(it)

This was one of the most emotional evenings in Met history—the night Leontyne Price bid farewell to opera. Aida is the role that inspired audiences around the world to acclaim her as the greatest Verdi soprano of her time. And this telecast shows why: the famous soaring phrases that seemed to never end, the shimmering top to her lustrous voice, undimmed by the years. But most of all, there is the ennobling heart and soul Price lavished on every performance—captured here forever. With James Levine conducting the Met orchestra, chorus, and ballet.

La Traviata - The Met(it)

James Levine leads a remarkable cast in one of Verdi’s most enduringly popular operas and brings fresh insights to this beloved score. Ileana Cotrubas is poignant and touching as Violetta, the consumptive courtesan who finds true love with Alfredo, sung with style and passion by the great Plácido Domingo. Cornell MacNeil is Germont, Alfredo’s father, who forces the two apart, setting in motion events that lead to a shattering and tragic conclusion. Colin Graham’s production features design by Tanya Moiseiwitsch and choreography by Zachary Solov.

Le Nozze di Figaro(it)

The Met assembled a vocal dream team for Jonathan Miller’s stylish production of the eternal Mozart masterpiece: Renée Fleming as the Countess, Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna, and Bryn Terfel as Figaro. With James Levine—one of the world’s great conductors of Mozart—in the pit, Bartoli interpolating two rarely heard alternate arias, and Dwayne Croft as the Count and Susanne Mentzer as Cherubino, this is a performance for the record books.

Lohengrin(de)

Wagner’s Romantic opera demands singing actors who can truly inhabit their parts, and that’s just what we have here. Is it possible for a Knight of the Holy Grail to look more enticing than Peter Hofmann? No wonder Elsa (Eva Marton) falls in love at first sight. Marton’s heroine is innocent, but she is also a passionate, real-life young woman—which is good, because Leonie Rysanek is positively demented as Ortrud, the sorceress who accuses Elsa and Lohengrin of using magic. With James Levine’s superb conducting, the orchestra and chorus are similarly magical.

The Metropolitan Opera: Salome(de)

Met performances of Strauss’s white-hot one-act tragedy, which receives its first new production at the company in 20 years. Claus Guth, one of Europe’s leading opera directors, gives the biblical story—already filtered through the beautiful and strange imagination of Oscar Wilde’s play—a psychologically perceptive Victorian-era setting rich in symbolism and subtle shades of darkness and light.

Strauss: Salome(de)

It is no wonder that Met audiences have gone wild over Karita Mattila’s sizzling Salome. Indisputably one of the greatest Salomes of our time, Mattila utterly incarnates Oscar Wilde’s petulant, willful, and lust-driven heroine. With Strauss’s groundbreaking music magnifying the degenerate atmosphere and building the erotic tension, this is one opera that is as shocking today as it was at its premiere in 1905.

Puccini: La Fanciulla del West(it)

One Night of Love(en)

Mary Barrett is an aspiring opera singer who is taken under the wings of a famous operatic maestro, Guilio Monterverdi. After spending endless working hours together and arguing, their relationship develops into love. But, jealousy and misunderstandings prevent Mary and Guilio from acknowledging their true feelings.

La Bohème(it)

Puccini’s heartbreaking story of young love in the garrets of Belle Epoque Paris has attracted many famous singers through the years. But with James Levine at the helm and the starry duo of Luciano Pavarotti and Renata Scotto as Rodolfo and Mimi, every bit of emotion in the score pours across the footlights and seduces the audience. In this case, the audience was in the millions since this was the very first in the “Live from the Met” series of telecasts. The evocative production is by Fabrizio Melano, designed by Pier Luigi Pizzi.

The Metropolitan Opera: Hamlet(fr)

After over a century out of the Met’s repertoire, audiences were thrilled to discover just what a sensational evening in the theater Thomas’s Hamlet can be. Simon Keenlyside’s riveting performance as the tortured Prince of Denmark in Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser’s starkly brooding production had critics raving that Keenlyside’s superb singing, coupled with his deftly delineated three-dimensional Hamlet, was one of the greatest examples of operatic drama of our time. The cast includes Marlis Petersen as the long suffering Ophélie, who brilliantly shows why her mad scene is so justly famous, along with Jennifer Larmore and James Morris as Gertrude and Claudius.

The Metropolitan Opera: La Fille du Régiment(fr)

Tenor Javier Camarena and soprano Pretty Yende team up for a feast of bel canto vocal fireworks—including the show-stopping tenor aria “Ah! Mes amis,” with its nine high Cs. Alessandro Corbelli and Maurizio Muraro trade off as the comic Sergeant Sulpice, with mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as the outlandish Marquise of Berkenfield. Enrique Mazzola conducts.

Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites(en)

Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the classic John Dexter production of Poulenc’s devastating story of faith and martyrdom. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard sings the touching role of Blanche and soprano Karita Mattila, a legend in her own time, returns to the Met as the Prioress.