Offenbach: The Tales of Hoffmann (2016)

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin (2007)

The pain of unrequited love is portrayed unforgettably by two of today’s greatest stars. Renée Fleming is musically and dramatically radiant as the shy Tatiana, who falls in love with the worldly Onegin, played with devastating charisma by Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Their mesmerizing vocalism and chemistry explode in one of opera’s most heartbreaking final scenes. With Valery Gergiev on the podium conducting Tchaikovsky’s passionate score, this performance is one for the ages.

• Music
• Drama

Dido & Aeneas (2005)

Henry Purcell's opera Dido & Aeneas, completed in 1689, was the subject of a memorable and breathtaking performance at the Staatsoper Berlin in 2005. In Dido & Aeneas Sasha Waltz opens up new horizons in music theatre, creating a fusion of dance, singing and music the choreographic opera. The (extended, revised) libretto, the (reconstructed) music, vocal parts, dance, the stage set featuring a rousing underwater ballet combine to form a sublime total choreography and parallel action involving dancers, singers and musicians. In this choreographic opera, Sasha Waltz demonstrates not only her familiarity with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Pina Bausch, but also the confidence she has in her own style. Sensational!

• Music
• Drama
• TV Movie

Amadeus (1984)

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

• History
• Music
• Drama

Wagner: Siegfried (2011)

Robert Lepage’s remarkable Met Opera production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, the 2013 Grammy Award Winner for Best Opera Recording, is now available as individual DVDs. Siegfried features Bryn Terfel, Jay Hunter Morris, and Deborah Voigt, with Fabio Luisi conducting.

• Fantasy
• Music

Wagner: Götterdämmerung (2012)

Ring Cycle, pt 4. Siegfried is drugged and tricked into kidnapping his wife, since she has the Ring now. More double-crossings, Siegfried ends up dead. Brunnhilde has had enough of this, tosses the Ring into the river and torches the place.

• Fantasy
• Music

Pfitzner: Palestrina (2009)

Requiring 38 soloists, chorus, and large orchestra, Hans Pfitzner's "Palestrina" is a challenging opera to stage. In Munich, the city in which it was premiered in 1917, director Christian Stückle, conductor Simone Young, and the Bavarian State Opera met those challenges with stunning success.

• Music
• Comedy
• Drama

The Metropolitan Opera: Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci (2015)

Director David McVicar’s new production brings opera’s favorite double bill to new life, setting the two operas in the same Sicilian setting, separated by two generations. Marcelo Álvarez takes on the rare feat of singing both leading tenor roles. In Cavalleria, he is Turiddu, the young man who abandons Santuzza (Eva-Maria Westbroek) in his pursuit of the married Lola (Ginger Costa-Jackson)—and ends up being killed in a duel with her husband, Alfio (George Gagnidze). In Pagliacci, Álvarez is Canio, the leader of a traveling vaudeville troupe. Patricia Racette sings Nedda, his unfaithful young wife, whose plans to run away with her lover are foiled by her spurned admirer Tonio (George Gagnidze)—with equally tragic consequences. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.

• Music
• Drama

La Bohème - The Movie (2024)

“La Bohème” follows a group of artists struggling to make a living in 19th-century Paris. The poet Rodolfo falls in love with the fragile seamstress Mimi. Love and joy are intertwined with poverty and illness in this story filmed live.

• Romance
• Drama
• Music

Aida - Arena di Verona (2013)

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pageantry of Verdi's Egyptian opera, presented here in a staging that is true to the original 1913 production, framed by obelisks and sphinxes and filled with chorus and dancers. Chinese soprano Hui He has won international acclaim for her portrayal of the eponymous slave girl whose forbidden love for the war hero Radamés (Marco Berti, the experienced Verdi tenor) brings death to them both.

• Drama
• Music

Don Giovanni (1991)

This production was originally staged for the Pepsico Summerfare Festival, The International Performing Arts Festival of the State University of New York at Purchase. Leaving the lyrics in their original Italian, acclaimed American director Peter Sellars transports Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Don Giovanni" to a modern-day metropolis, nestling the opera's beloved characters among the brownstones of New York City's Harlem. Sellars's contemporary retelling of a classic musical tale is one of three performances in a Mozart series that also includes "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "'Così Fan Tutte."

• Music
• Drama

The Prompter (1999)

Siv works as a prompter for the Norwegian opera. As the rehearsals for Aida starts, she marries a demanding man, Fred, who still has a strong connection to his ex-wife. Starting at her wedding, Siv must repeatedly take a back seat, both to Freds children and their mother. But when she meets a man who shares her passion for music, she starts to question the path her life has taken.

• Comedy
• Drama
• Romance

Madama Butterfly - Teatro alla Scala (2016)

• Drama
• Music
• Romance

The Metropolitan Opera: Romeo et Juliette (2024)

Two singers at the height of their powers—radiant soprano Nadine Sierra and tenor sensation Benjamin Bernheim—come together as the star-crossed lovers in Gounod’s sumptuous Shakespeare adaptation, with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct one of the repertoire’s most romantic scores. Bartlett Sher’s elegant staging also features baritone Will Liverman and tenor Frederick Ballentine as the archrivals Mercutio and Tybalt, mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as the mischievous pageboy Stéphano, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Frère Laurent.

• Music
• Romance
• Drama

The Metropolitan Opera: Nabucco (2024)

The success of Verdi’s third opera, a stirring drama about the fall of ancient Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco), catapulted the 28-year-old composer to international fame. The music and Verdi himself were subsumed into a surge of patriotic fervor culminating in the foundation of the modern nation of Italy. Specifically, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves ('Va, pensiero'), in which the Israelites express their longing for their homeland, came to stand for the country’s aspirations for unity and that exciting era in Italian history, the Risorgimento, or 'Resurgence'.

• Music
• Drama

The Metropolitan Opera: Carmen (2024)

Director Carrie Cracknell makes her Met debut, reinvigorating the classic story with a staging that moves the action to the modern day, in a contemporary American industrial town.

• Music
• Romance
• Drama

Carmen (1984)

A film version of the famous Bizet opera, where a soldier (Don Jose) falls in love with a beautiful factory worker (Carmen), but she does not reciprocate his feelings.

• Music
• Drama

Rusalka (1963)

The water fairy Rusalka falls in love with an earthly prince. In vain, Father Aquarius warns her. Her sincere feelings are met with human treachery...

• Music
• Fantasy

The Metropolitan Opera: Manon (2019)

Massenet’s tale of passion, excess, and their consequences stars rising soprano Lisette Oropesa in the effervescent title role. Tenor Michael Fabiano is her ardent admirer, Chevalier des Grieux, with Maurizio Benini conducting Laurent Pelly’s enchanting production.

• Music
• Drama

The Metropolitan Opera: Agrippina (2020)

As the imperious title empress, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato leads the Met premiere of Handel’s tale of deception and deceit. Harry Bicket conducts Sir David McVicar’s wry new production, which gives this Baroque black comedy a politically charged, modern updating.

• Music
• Drama
• Comedy

Rigoletto (2004)

In Rigoletto, the deformed figure of the hunchbacked jester at the Mantuan court acts as a foil to his cynical and powerful master, an unscrupulous philanderer contrasted with his cruel and unforgiving fool. Rigoletto encourages and welcomes the Duke's conquests, pitilessly mocking his victims until he discovers that the Duke has abducted the one person he genuinely loves, his own daughter. As a result, the character of the court jester is transformed into a tragic figure who, in spite of his evident immorality and malice, allows us to sense the devotion he feels for his daughter and his horror at being destroyed by the same despotic world as that which he himself has helped to create.

• Drama
• Music