Nightly Opera Streams, June 8–14

Twisted fairy tales and historical dramas—and a special encore presentation of the Met’s recent At-Home Gala—make for another exciting lineup of Nightly Opera Streams. This guide will help you plan your operatic week.

View the Playbills from the original performance dates for each stream, including synopses, program notes, and more.

The Nightly Opera Streams and At-Home Gala are just the latest examples of the Met using technological innovations to confront crises. Learn about other crucial points in the company’s history when technology helped the show go on.

Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote recently joined Executive Stage Director Paula Suozzi and Assistant Director Eric Einhorn for a virtual conversation about Hansel and Gretel and took questions about the opera from students.

Teresa Stratas, who gives tour-de-force performances in this week’s streams of Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, enjoyed a Met career spanning more than three decades. Read more about this fascinating and elusive artist.

Director Mariusz Trelinski discusses the connections his intriguing double-bill production makes between the complicated heroines of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Bartók’s Bluebeard's Castle.

Elīna Garanča, in the trouser role of Sesto, sings an excerpt from the celebrated aria “Parto, parto,” from Mozart’s penultimate opera, La Clemenza di Tito.

As she prepared to reprise her portrayal of the title heroine of Handel’s dramatic opera, soprano Renée Fleming explained why the composer continues to seize audiences’ imaginations.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts members of the Met Orchestra, recorded separately in their individual homes, in the sweeping Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana as part of the At-Home Gala.

Colin Graham, who directed the world premiere of The Ghosts of Versailles at the Met, explains why John Corigliano’s opera offers a message of hope and compassion perfect for our time.

Peek into the Met prop shops, where a team of theatrical wizards prepares a delectable spread of treats for Richard Jones’s production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

Before appearing as Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito in 2012, mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča spoke about singing Mozart’s sublime music, her character’s conflicting emotions, and the challenges of playing a man.

While the company hadn’t presented an opera by Handel before 1984, in recent years, the composer’s works have appeared with increasing frequency on the Met stage.

Resources from the Met’s education department are available for many of the operas featured in this streaming series. Designed for use in the classroom, they are perfect for parents whose kids are now learning from home, or for anyone who’d like to know more about opera.

In this excerpt from the final act of Handel’s Rodelinda, Renée Fleming sings the titular Queen of Lombardy’s aria “Mio caro bene,” mixing joy and relief as she is at long last reunited with her husband.

In Richard Jones’s production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, which premiered during the 2007–08 season, food—and the absence of food—takes center stage.

For almost 90 years, millions of listeners have tuned in to the Met’s Saturday Matinee Radio Broadcasts, beginning with a 1931 performance of Hänsel und Gretel. Explore some of the noteworthy events in the annals of the longest-running continuous classical music program in American broadcast history.

In a highlight of the April 25 At-Home Gala, the Met Orchestra and Chorus came together through nearly 100 individually recorded videos to perform “Va, pensiero” from Verdi’s Nabucco, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

In his 2015 production of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, starring Anna Netrebko and Nadja Michael, director Mariusz Treliński explored the darker side of a pair of fairy tales with complicated women at the center.

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