Opera Catalog

Composer: George Frideric Handel
Librettist: Nicola Haym

Bicket; Fleming, Blythe, Scholl, Kaiser, Shenyang Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus

Approximate running time: 3 hrs. 17 min.

Renée Fleming stars in the title role of one of Handel’s greatest dramas, seen in Stephen Wadsworth’s 2004 Met premiere production. Rodelinda is faced with an impossible dilemma: With her husband Bertarido believed dead, she either has to marry the despised Grimoaldo (the elegant Joseph Kaiser), who has usurped her husband’s throne, or see him murd...

Composer: Charles Gounod
Librettist: Jules Barbier and Michel Carré

Domingo; Netrebko, Alagna, Gunn, Lloyd

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 51 min.

The world’s most famous love story comes to operatic life with superstars Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna playing the star-crossed young couple. The abandon and ardor of their performances brought audiences to their feet in both the opera house and in movie theaters. And the unique, up-close-and-personal camerawork takes the viewer onstage to wit...

Composer: Giacomo Puccini
Librettist: Giuseppe Adami

Armiliato; Gheorghiu, Alagna, Oropesa, Brenciu, Ramey

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 1 hrs. 54 min.

Puccini’s achingly beautiful score charmingly conveys the plight of Magda (the “swallow” of the title) who unexpectedly finds true love with the handsome young Ruggero. But their idyllic and happy life comes to an premature end as she is haunted by the fear that her checkered past will ruin his future. Real-life couple and operatic stars Angela Ghe...

Composer: Richard Strauss
Librettist: Hugo von Hofmannsthal

de Waart; Fleming, Schäfer, Graham, Allen, Sigmundsson

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 3 hrs. 18 min.

This production of Strauss’s most sumptuous work by director Nathaniel Merrill and designer Robert O’Hearn is almost as beloved as the opera itself. It perfectly captures the glittering never-land of rococco Vienna the way the Viennese—and the rest of the world—wish it had been, and it’s the ideal setting for an adult comedy of love and errors. Sus...

Composer: Richard Strauss
Librettist: Hedwig Lachmann after Oscar Wilde

Summers; Mattila, Komlósi, Uusitalo, Begley, Kaiser

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 1 hrs. 46 min.

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 oper...

Composer: Camille Saint-Saëns
Librettist: Ferdinand Lemaire

Levine; Borodina, Domingo, Leiferkus

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Chorus and Ballet

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 28 min.

Any time Plácido Domingo sings the demanding role of Samson is a gala occasion, but this time was even more special: the performance opened the Met’s 1998-99 season and honored the great tenor on the 30th anniversary of his Met debut. With James Levine bringing out all the color in Saint-Saëns's exotic score, the rest of the cast rose to the occasi...

Composer: Richard Wagner
Librettist: Richard Wagner

Luisi; Voigt, Hunter Morris, Terfel

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Approximate running time: 4 hrs. 25 min.

Robert Lepage’s landmark staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, unveiled over the course of the 2010–11 and 2011–12 seasons, was the first new Met production of the complete cycle in more than 20 years. Combining state-of-the-art technology with traditional storytelling, it brings Wagner’s vision into the 21st century. Jay Hunter Morris is th...

Composer: Richard Wagner
Librettist: Richard Wagner

Levine; Jerusalem, Behrens, Morris

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 4 hrs. 8 min.

Siegfried’s magical world is brilliantly evoked in this Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production. Our storybook hero (Siegfried Jerusalem) forges his sword, uses it to kill the dragon (marvelous Matti Salminen as Fafner), discovers treasure, and awakens the sleeping Brünnhilde (a powerful Hildegard Behrens), oblivious to the ring of fire t...

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Librettist: Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito

Levine; Pieczonka, Giordani, Domingo, Morris

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 29 min.

When this sumptuous production by Giancarlo del Monaco opened in 1995, legendary tenor Plácido Domingo gave a riveting performance as the fiery revolutionary Gabriele Adorno, a tenor part. In the 2010 revival, he made history by taking on the baritone title role, one of Verdi’s most fascinating characters, and thrilling audiences with his multiface...

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Librettist: Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito

Levine; Te Kanawa, Domingo, Chernov, Lloyd

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 20 min.

This evocative production by Giancarlo Del Monaco sumptuously captures the look and feel of 14th century Genoa and is a perfect compliment to Verdi’s setting of this story of searing conflict between public duty and private grief. Plácido Domingo is Gabriele Adorno, sworn enemy of the doge of Genoa, Simon Boccanegra (Vladimir Chernov). Gabriele is ...

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Librettist: Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito

Levine; Tomowa-Sintow, Moldoveanu, Milnes, Plishka

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 29 min.

Sherrill Milnes brought vivid theatrical force to his portrait of Simon Boccanegra, the 14th century Doge of Genoa who battles private demons and political enemies. Only the greatest Verdi baritones manage to put their individual stamp on this monumental role, and Milnes succeeds brilliantly, mixing poetry and power to reveal Boccanegra’s heart to ...

Composer: Vincenzo Bellini
Librettist: Felice Romani,

Pidò; Dessay, Flórez, Pertusi

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 22 min.

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 a...