Nightly Opera Streams, November 9–15

Our tour through opera history concludes with eight operas spanning some 125 years from the late 19th century to the present day, a time period during which the evolutionary progress of musical style branched off in many different fascinating directions. This tour guide will help you navigate the lineup.

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

In May 2020, General Manager Peter Gelb spoke with soprano Karita Mattila about her experience singing the fearsome title role of Strauss’s Salome.

Live in HD host Nadine Sierra chats backstage with composer Thomas Adès about his stunning and surreal opera The Exterminating Angel, along with two of the production’s stars, Amanda Echalaz and Joseph Kaiser.

The 2019–20 season saw the company premiere of Philip Glass’s transcendental Akhnaten, which starred countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo as the enigmatic title pharaoh who radically transformed ancient Egyptian society. 

Friends and colleagues of the great English composer reflect on his incomparable musical legacy.

A gun-slinging heroine. A romantic tale of the Wild West. The first great opera with an American setting. Learn more about Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West with our In Focus podcast.

Celebrated South African artist and director William Kentridge rehearses a scene from Berg’s Lulu with soprano Marlis Petersen, who sings the title role.

Set and costume designer Santo Loquasto, a longtime Broadway master and four-time Tony-winner, has created striking sets and costumes for four Met productions, including the staging of Salome being screened this week.

Shortly before the Met premiere of Glass’s Akhnaten, its star Anthony Roth Costanzo joined with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Mannes Orchestra, and Gandini Juggling to perform excerpts at the Brooklyn Museum.

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.

Superstar soprano Anna Netrebko has appeared in more Live in HD transmissions than any other principal artist. Watch highlights from a dozen of her roles, including this week’s stream of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur.

Tenor Tony Stevenson and fight director B. H. Barry joined Executive Stage Director Paula Suozzi for a virtual discussion about La Fanciulla del West and took questions about the opera from students. 

When searching for an instrument to give voice to the imprisoning force that traps a group of chic dinner guests in The Exterminating Angel, composer Thomas Adès settled upon an early electronic instrument from the 1920s.

Marcello Giordani, who passed away in October 2019 and is featured in this week’s stream of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, was one of the Met’s brightest star tenors in recent decades.

An opera that was born in scandal and makes sensation its stock and trade has enjoyed a fittingly tumultuous and exciting history at the Metropolitan, from its notorious premiere in 1907 to the spectacular 2008 performance being streamed this week.

Thomas Adès’s brilliant new opera The Exterminating Angel received its highly anticipated North American premiere at the Met following acclaimed runs in Salzburg and London. The production, directed by Tom Cairns, embraced the mesmerizing weirdness of the opera.

One of the most memorable aspects of Phelim McDermott’s production of Akhnaten, created in collaboration with the pioneering theater group Improbable, is its incorporation of mesmerizing juggling, designed by choreographer and juggling master Sean Gandini, which seems to make Philip Glass’s music appear before your very eyes.

The heroine of Berg’s Lulu captivates all who cross her path. In his 2015 new production of the opera, artists and director William Kentridge explored why all attempts to tame this so-called snake are doomed to fail.

In his 2008 production of Britten’s Peter Grimes, director John Doyle examines one of opera’s most intriguing outcasts and the community that judges him.

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