Opera Catalog

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Librettist: Salvatore Cammarano and Leone Emanuele Bardare

Cleva; Price, Dalis, Corelli, Sereni, Wilderman

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 4 min.

One of the legendary evenings in Met history was the night Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli both made their Met debuts. The opera was Verdi’s Il Trovatore, an absolutely perfect fit for their voices and one that would forever after be associated with these two singers. This broadcast is the next performance they gave and captures not only the spec...

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Librettist: Salvatore Cammarano

Noseda; Radvanovsky, Zajick, Álvarez, Hvorostovsky, Youn

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 15 min.

Few operas have been as maligned as Il Trovatore. But few things in opera can compare to (and diminish an audience’s delight in) the dramatic power of the endless melodies and surging rhythms Verdi lavished on his characters. At the center of a tangled web of fate is Marcello Álvarez as the heroic troubadour, Manrico, who finds himself in a deadly ...

Composer: Hector Berlioz
Librettist: Hector Berlioz

Levine; Hunt Lieberson, Voigt, Heppner, Croft, Lloyd

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 4 hrs. 3 min.

From "James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met" CD Box Set Performances of Berlioz’s epic masterpiece are rare events—under James Levine’s inspired leadership, the stellar cast and the Met’s chorus and orchestra triumphantly meet the enormous challenge. Ben Heppner is the legendary Trojan hero Aeneas who escapes the doomed city of Troy and fa...

Composer: Samuel Barber
Librettist: Gian Carlo Menotti

Mitropoulos; Steber, Elias, Resnik, Gedda, Tozzi

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 0 min.

This broadcast, recorded just two weeks after Vanessa’s Met world premiere, presents the original cast in spectacular form. Eleanor Steber is marvelous as the title heroine, a beautiful woman awaiting the return of her long-lost lover. But the man who arrives is his son, Anatol (a suave Nicolai Gedda). The handsome youth plays a dangerous emotional...

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Librettist: Charles Duveyrier and Eugène Scribe

Levine; Scotto, Ochman, Elvira, Raimondi

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 37 min.

Verdi’s gripping tale of Sicilians rising against the occupying French stars Renata Scotto in her only broadcast of this rarely heard masterpiece. From the beginning of the opera, when Elena (Scotto) sings an “innocent” song fanning the people’s resentment against the foreign army, to the end, when the ringing of her wedding bells signals the start...

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Librettist: Charles Duveyrier and Eugène Scribe, trans. By Eugenio Caimi

Levine; Caballé, Gedda, Milnes, Díaz

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 36 min.

This astonishing cast introduced Vespri to Met audiences only a few weeks before this broadcast and opera lovers fought for tickets to hear in person what all the excitement was about. James Levine’s conducting was as passionate as it was authoritative, and the singers responded with performances that are still talked about with awe. Montserrat Cab...

Composer: Richard Wagner
Librettist: Richard Wagner

von Karajan; Nilsson, Crespin, Veasey, Vickers, Adam, Talvela

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Approximate running time: 3 hrs. 29 min.

Wagner’s powerful and wrenching tale of ill-fated love requires a cast of great singing actors, and that’s just what this broadcast provides. Jon Vickers and Régine Crespin are the brother and sister who fall rapturously in love, only to be torn apart by death. The legendary Birgit Nilsson sings Brünnhilde, the Valkyrie of the title who is punished...

Composer: Richard Wagner
Librettist: Richard Wagner

Leinsdorf; Flagstad, Melchior, Huehn, Lawrence, Branzell

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Approximate running time: 3 hrs. 16 min.

This is the only Met Walküre broadcast before World War II with the legendary Kirsten Flagstad as Brünnhilde—an overwhelming portrayal that continues to grip listeners today. Fortunately, this uncut Walküre has a cast for the ages, all in prime form. Lauritz Melchior and Marjorie Lawrence are Siegmund and Sieglinde, twins who fall passionately in l...

Composer: Richard Wagner
Librettist: Richard Wagner

Leinsdorf; Nilsson, Kuchta, Dalis, Vickers, Edelmann, Wiemann

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Approximate running time: 3 hrs. 25 min.

Erich Leinsdorf conducts some of the greatest Wagnerian singers of the post-WWII era in this stunning performance of Die Walküre, the highly emotional—and ever-popular—second installment of the Ring cycle. Otto Edelmann is Wotan, lord of the gods, who sees his carefully laid plans go tragically wrong. The incomparable Birgit Nilsson sings Brünnhild...

Composer: Richard Wagner
Librettist: Richard Wagner

Levine; Eaglen, Voigt, Schwarz, Domingo, Morris, Halfvarson

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Approximate running time: 3 hrs. 46 min.

The waves of emotion that pour forth from the score make Die Walküre the most popular of the four Ring operas. The incandescent Plácido Domingo (Siegmund) and Deborah Voigt (Sieglinde) portray the lovers who are also brother and sister. Jane Eaglen is Brünnhilde, the Valkyrie of the title, who is stripped of her godhood by Wotan, sung by the incomp...

Composer: Richard Wagner
Librettist: Richard Wagner

Klobucar; Nilsson, Rysanek, Ludwig, Vickers, Stewart

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Approximate running time: 3 hrs. 35 min.

Wagner’s drama of overwhelming love and devastating loss has seldom been so vividly brought to life as with this all-star cast of great singing actors. The electrifying combination of Jon Vickers and Leonie Rysanek, as twins who fall in love, is legendary. Birgit Nilsson, the defining Brünnhilde of her generation, gives one of her most touching per...

Composer: Richard Wagner
Librettist: Richard Wagner

Levine; Behrens, Norman, Ludwig, Lakes, Morris, Moll

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Approximate running time: 3 hrs. 50 min.

It is all about love—an overwhelming, all-consuming erotic love that will not be bound by law; and a father’s deep love for a son he must sacrifice and a daughter he must discipline at a profound cost to himself. In this incandescent performance conducted by James Levine, James Morris’s legendary Wotan is coupled with Hildegard Behrens’s searing Br...