The Metropolitan Opera: Idomeneo

Country boy Nemorino is determined to win the haughty Adina’s heart, but she refuses to give him the time of day. Can Doctor Dulcamara’s so-called ‘elixir of love’ work its magic?

Filmed at the Teatro del Silenzio (Theatre of Silence) in Lajatico over three nights in 2024 and marking his 30th year as an artist, this once-in-a-lifetime event sees classical star Andrea Bocelli appear in his home of Tuscany with a star-studded lineup of special guests to perform songs that have been the pillars of his career. This 4-disc package features two shows – “The Celebration” and “30 Years of Musical Inspiration” and over 4 and a half hours of performances. Bocelli is joined by an 80-piece orchestra, a cast of over 200 musicians and family and friends including Ed Sheeran, Jon Batiste, Shania Twain, Brian May and more. It’s a night that transforms both the landscape and beautiful Tuscan sky into something totally spectacular. The result: a mesmerising and truly unforgettable concert.

This is an excellent production of Mozart's 1791 opera about Titus Vespasian, who prefers to be remembered for his clemency, even toward his best friend who instigated a revolt to overthrow him. It was recorded at Glyndebourne on August 3, 2017, in front of an audience, and the orchestra and singers perform the work beautifully

Journey to the Teatro del Silenzio (Theater of Silence), Lajatico, where once-in-a-lifetime performances showcase the Maestro’s extensive and beloved repertoire, alongside captivating duets with an unprecedented cast of global superstars, including Ed Sheeran, Shania Twain, Will Smith, Jon Batiste, Sofia Carson, Lang Lang, Nadine Sierra and more. With extraordinary staging, production, and visuals, set against a landscape of unparalleled beauty amongst the Tuscan hills, Andrea Bocelli’s sensational career comes to life in a truly unforgettable experience.

Massenet composed his opera about Cenerentola nearly 80 years after Rossini did his. And if you are looking for the outburst of the non-stop hilarity and the musical jokes of Rossini, you won't find it here. Also, while the Cendrillon was highly successful and popular in its time, it does not reach up to the artistic and musical levels offered by Massenet's other operas, like Manon, or Thais or Werther. Nevertheless, this is a delightful opera and it is well presented by The Royal Opera. Laurent Pelly created a ingenious setting with movable walls which are covered [in French] with the story of Cinderella, and which open and close book-like.

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.

The San Francisco Opera Presents Gounod's Romeo and Juliet. Directed for the screen by Frank Zamacona in 2019

Bizet’s rarely heard opera returned to the Met for the first time in a century on New Year’s Eve 2015, in Penny Woolcock’s acclaimed new production. Star soprano Diana Damrau sings Leïla, the virgin priestess at the center of the story. Matthew Polenzani and Mariusz Kwiecien are Nadir and Zurga, rivals for Leïla’s love who have sworn to renounce her to protect their friendship—and who get to sing one of opera’s most celebrated duets, “Au fond du temple saint.” Nicolas Testé is the high priest Nourabad and Gianandrea Noseda conducts Bizet’s supremely romantic score.

It’s a busy day in the manor house as the staff prepare for the marriage of the wily valet Figaro and his quick-witted fiancée, the maid Susanna. But the head of the house, Count Almaviva, wants Susanna for himself—and he’s used to getting his way. With the help of the slighted Countess, Figaro and Susanna work to turn the manor upside down in order to exchange their holy vows of matrimony.

Having triumphed at the Met in some of the repertory’s fiercest soprano roles, Sondra Radvanovsky stars as the mythic sorceress who will stop at nothing in her quest for vengeance. Joining Radvanovsky in the Met-premiere production of Cherubini’s rarely performed masterpiece is tenor Matthew Polenzani as Medea’s Argonaut husband, Giasone; soprano Janai Brugger as her rival for his love, Glauce; bass Michele Pertusi as Glauce’s father, Creonte, the King of Corinth; and mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova as Medea’s confidante, Neris. Carlo Rizzi conducts.

Falstaff is Verdi’s masterpiece of comic opera, in which the behaviour of the ageing Sir John Falstaff, a devious freeloader and would-be ladykiller, causes uproar in the petty-bourgeois household of the Windsor’s. In this performance stage and film director Mario Martone updates the action to the present day and shows Falstaff as ageing rebel in dodgy sideburns and leather jacket.

Priestess Julia watches over the eternal flame of the goddess Vesta. While the Great Vestal condemns to death every virgin who breaks her vow of chastity, Julia is delighted to be reunited with Licinius, who has returned from war as a victorious Roman general. One night, as the two lovers swear their love before the temple altar, the eternal flame goes out…

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.

Nadine Sierra summits another peak of the soprano repertoire as Amina, who sleepwalks her way into audiences’ hearts in Bellini’s poignant tale of love lost and found. In his new production, Rolando Villazón—the tenor who has embarked on a brilliant second career as a director—retains the opera’s original setting in the Swiss Alps but uses its somnambulant plot to explore the emotional and psychological valleys of the mind. Tenor Xabier Anduaga co-stars as Amina’s fiancé, Elvino, alongside soprano Sydney Mancasola as her rival, Lisa, and bass Alexander Vinogradov as Count Rodolfo. Riccardo Frizza takes the podium for one of opera’s most ravishing works.

Donizetti’s timeless comedy shines in Otto Schenk’s enchanting production, conducted by James Levine and featuring a remarkable cast. The incomparable Anna Netrebko is Norina, the young widow beloved by Ernesto (a suave Matthew Polenzani), who is about to be disinherited by his miserly uncle, Don Pasquale (John Del Carlo). It takes the clever scheming of Dr. Malatesta (Mariusz Kwiecien) to set things right and to teach the old curmudgeon a lesson—fits of temper, mistaken identities, and all kinds of comic confusion included.

Honor the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks with this special performance hosted by Misty Copeland and led by Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin featuring soloists Ailyn Pérez, Michelle DeYoung, Matthew Polenzani and Eric Owens.

Gloriana, Op. 53, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten to an English libretto by William Plomer, based on Lytton Strachey's 1928 Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History It was written to mark the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

From the Auditorium in Turin, conductor Luciano Berio and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, with soprano Anna Rita Taliento, baritone Alan Opie, and violist Sabrina Giuliani, perform: Ulisse, a suite from the opera by Luigi Dallapiccola, and Concert Music for Viola and String Orchestra by Giorgio Federico Ghedini.

In its most ambitious effort yet to bring the joy and artistry of opera to audiences everywhere during the Met’s closure, the company presented an unprecedented virtual At-Home Gala, featuring more than 40 leading artists performing in a live stream from their homes all around the world.

Joyce DiDonato gives a sensational performance as Mary, Queen of Scots, in Donizetti’s bel canto drama, opposite Elza van den Heever as Queen Elizabeth. This Live in HD presentation of David McVicar’s acclaimed 2012 production also stars Matthew Polenzani as Leicester, the man caught between the rival queens. Maurizio Benini conducts.

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.

David McVicar’s inventive hit production of Handel’s most popular opera sets the story of Caesar’s conquest of Egypt—and of its queen, Cleopatra—in the era of British 19th-century imperialism while also including elements of Baroque theater and Bollywood movies. David Daniels in the title role and Natalie Dessay as Cleopatra lead the cast. Christophe Dumaux is Ptolemy, Cleopatra’s brother, and Alice Coote and Patricia Bardon star as Sesto and Cornelia, son and widow of Caesar’s opponent Pompey. Early music specialist Harry Bicket conducts and plays harpsichord continuo.

The 2017–18 Live in HD season concluded with an enchanted performance of Cendrillon, Massenet’s glittering operatic adaptation of the Cinderella story. This charming staging by Laurent Pelly, which bursts to life with the director’s characteristic wit and whimsy, stars American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as the title outcast-turned-princess. Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote offers a touching portrayal of the pants role Prince Charming, while soprano Kathleen Kim shines as the Fairy Godmother. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, as the outlandish Madame de la Haltière, and bass-baritone Laurent Naouri, as the haggard Pandolfe, round out the principal cast. On the podium, conductor Bertrand de Billy leads a performance that is equal parts madcap comedy and heartfelt romance.

Anna Netrebko as the beautiful and wealthy Adina leads the cast in Barlett Sher’s production of Donizetti’s charming comedy, first seen on Opening Night of the Met’s 2012–13 season. Matthew Polenzani is Nemorino, the poor but good-hearted country boy who wins her love—with the help of the magic “elixir” sold by the quack Dulcamara, played by Ambrogio Maestri. Mariusz Kwiecien is the swaggering Sergeant Belcore and Maurizio Benini conducts.

With ancient Rome as a backdrop, composer Benjamin Britten's chamber opera chronicles the undoing of the virginal Lucretia at the hands of Tarquinius. Stars Kathryn Harries, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Russell Smythe and Jean Rigby imbue the lead roles with fervor and suspense while the English National Opera Orchestra provides spectacular musical accompaniment to this powerful synthesis of Greek tragedy and opera.

Met Music director James Levine conducts a cast of youthful stars in Mozart’s sophisticated comedy about testing the ties of love. Susanna Phillips and Isabel Leonard are the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, who are led to believe their fiancés have gone off to war. Matthew Polenzani and Rodion Pogossov are Ferrando and Guglielmo, the lovers who return in disguise to test their girls' fidelity. Danielle de Niese sings the scheming maid Despina and Maurizio Muraro is Don Alfonso, the philosopher and mastermind pulling the strings.

Death in Venice was Britten's final opera--an extraordinarily atmospheric and haunting adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella, evoking the grandeur and shabbiness of a Venice in the grip of disease. He eloquently and evocatively describes the moral and physical degeneration of Aschenbach, the writer whose obsessive pursuit of beauty in the form of a boy leads him into humiliation and death. Robert Tear takes the demanding role of Aschenbach opposite Alan Opie, who sings the various baritone parts. To portray the beauty and fascination of the Polish family and Tadzio, Britten made prominent the use of dance, by turning these characters into dancers, choreographed in this production by Martha Clarke. This new production for Glydebourne is directed by Stephen Lawless and conducted by Graeme Jenkins.

Berg’s 20th-century shocker stars baritone Peter Mattei in the title role, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium and soprano Elza van den Heever as the long-suffering Marie. Groundbreaking visual artist and director William Kentridge unveils a bold new staging set in an apocalyptic wasteland.

Salome, princess of Judea, the daughter‑in‑law of King Herod, finds life in her father‑in‑law’s palace dreary. Her curiosity is roused when she hears the voice of Jochanaan, a prophet held prisoner by Herod who is afraid of him. Obsessed by this enigmatic and virtuous man, Salome is ready to do anything to possess him, dead or alive. Drawing on Oscar Wilde’s scandalous play of the same name, in 1905 Richard Strauss produced the work that was to ensure his status as Wagner’s successor in the history of German opera. A dazzling hour and forty minutes, decadent in its very essence, which, for her debut at the Paris Opera, Lydia Steier treats as a dystopia in which amorality rules.

Kristine Opolais “gives a vocally lustrous and achingly vulnerable performance” (New York Times) in the role that helped launch her international career, the mythical Rusalka, who sings the haunting “Song to the Moon.” Director Mary Zimmerman brings her wondrous theatrical imagination to Dvořák’s fairytale of love and longing, rejection and redemption, giving the work “an inspired staging” (Huffington Post). Brandon Jovanovich, Jamie Barton, Katarina Dalayman, and Eric Owens complete “a matchless cast” (New York Times), and Sir Mark Elder conducts “a magnificent rendering of the composer’s lush score (Huffington Post).

This deliciously dark take on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tale, appealing to audiences of all ages, was part of the Met’s popular English-language holiday series. Alice Coote and Christine Schäfer star as the famous siblings lost in the woods, who battle the ravenous Witch—a zany portrayal by tenor Philip Langridge—while the Met orchestra, under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski, glories in the rich, folk-inspired score.

Elizabeth of Valois is promised in marriage to Don Carlos of Spain, as part of a peace treaty between the two kingdoms. They meet and fall in love – but no sooner have they declared their love than news comes that the terms of the treaty have changed: Elizabeth is to marry Carlos’s father Philip instead. Politics and religion are dangerously entwined in Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo. Performed on November 30th, 2016, at the Opéra national du Rhin, Strasbourg.

Accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, composer Benjamin Britten's satirical look at life in an English market town delivers plenty of laughs. When Lady Billows (Patricia Johnson) realizes no girls in town are worthy of the May Queen title, she crowns virtuous Albert Herring (John Graham-Hall), the greengrocer's son, as the village's May King. The comic opera features a strong ensemble cast including Alan Opie and Felicity Palmer.

In the spring of 2024, the Berliner Philharmoniker, under the direction of their chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, presented a staged production of Richard Strauss’s thrilling and dark opera Elektra – the highlight of the Baden-Baden Easter Festival. The title role was sung by the acclaimed soprano Nina Stemme. Philipp Stölzl, who has caused a sensation with his spectacular productions on the lake stage at the Bregenz Festival, was the director and set designer.

Benjamin Britten's opera as performed by the English National Opera, with Philip Langridge in the title role.

Live from Munich 2009

Systematically overturning accepted morals, Elagabalus dresses men as women, and names women to the Senate, favours sinning servants and humiliates generals. Baroque and carnivalesque, Eliogabalo is not, however, an opera that advocates a return to order. Leonardo García Alarcón, a finder of baroque gems, and Thomas Jolly are careful not to transform Eliogabalo into a sublime icon who would abase virtue. On the contrary, the conductor and young director, who are presenting their first production for the Paris Opera, accept the character’s contradictions and ambiguities

An early baroque masterpiece, Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea was inspired by The Annals by Tacitus and celebrates the love of the emperor Nero and the courtesan Poppea. Filmed at the 2008 Glyndebourne Festival, Robert Carsen’s production brings together Danielle de Niese, Alice Coote and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under the direction of Emmanuelle Haïm.

Willy Decker’s stunning production of Verdi’s unforgettable drama stars the riveting singing actress Natalie Dessay as Violetta. Exhausted by her restless life as a courtesan, Violetta knows she will die soon. But then she meets the young and idealistic Alfredo (Matthew Polenzani), who offers her true love—with tragic consequences. Dmitri Hvorostovsky is Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s stern father, and Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.