Nightly Opera Streams, November 23–29

Dive into in the delicious drama of opera’s most dysfunctional family dynamics with a guide to this week’s free streams.

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

Patrice Chéreau’s humanistic 2016 Met production of Strauss’s Elektra—featuring the great Nina Stemme in the title role—revealed the psychological depth and family drama at the heart of a work that is much more than a simple, violent tale of revenge.

A Met staffer looks back on his discovery of opera through the bewitching voice of soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, who stars in this week’s streams of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Arabella.

Composer Nico Muhly describes the fascinating sound-world and diverse musical elements of his 2018 opera Marnie, and the inspirations behind his artistic process.

Throwing herself wholly into every role she played, French soprano Natalie Dessay was one of the Met’s most magnetic artists for more than two decades.

The quest for the all-powerful ring continues with the second installment of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. Learn more about Die Walküre with our In Focus podcast.

Few operatic conventions are more thrilling to behold than the “mad scene,” and the one in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor is definitive.

In Sir David McVicar’s 2009 staging, Verdi’s Il Trovatore reclaimed its place as a dramatic—not just musical—masterwork.

The 45-ton “machine” at the center of Robert Lepage’s staging of Wagner’s Ring took quite a journey to return to the Met stage in spring 2019.

Before headlining the 2010 new production of Hamlet, which returned Ambroise Thomas’s Shakespeare adaptation to the Met after a nearly 100-year absence, baritone Simon Keenlyside discussed singing the opera’s brooding title character.

Donizetti’s riveting bel canto showcase for virtuoso coloratura sopranos has been a consistent presence in the Met repertory since the company’s very first season, with several legendary artists singing the title role.

The extraordinary and beloved Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who died in 2017, is featured in this week’s stream of Verdi’s La Traviata.

Designer Arianne Phillips and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, who sang the title role of Nico Muhly’s Marnie, discuss the production’s stunning 1960s costumes with Live in HD host Susan Graham.

The Met’s technical director explains to Live in HD host Renée Fleming how the stage crew changes the massive sets for Lucia di Lammermoor.

As he prepared to conduct Patrice Chéreau’s explosive staging of Elektra in 2016, Esa-Pekka Salonen explained how Strauss’s liminal 20th-century masterpiece blends musical styles.

Theft, denial, deceit, and a captivating, enigmatic heroine. Learn more about Nico Muhly’s contemporary opera Marnie with our In Focus podcast.

Strauss’s overwhelming one-act opera has a limited but distinguished history at the Met, thanks largely to a series of great artists on the podium and in the title role.

Natalie Dessay discusses taking on the title role in Mary Zimmerman’s ghostly staging of Lucia di Lammermoor.

Nico Muhly’s gripping new opera Marnie arrived at the Met for its U.S. premiere in October 2018, in a fast-paced production by Michael Mayer.

Before taking on the warrior-maiden Brünnhilde—whose heroism, sacrifice, and discovery of love make her the heart of Wagner’s epic Ring cycle—Christine Georke spoke about bringing one of opera’s most compelling characters to life.

Learn about the storied history of Wagner’s operas at the Met, from the house’s opening season in 1883 to the present day.

With its deep Freudian undercurrents, Strauss’s incendiary Elektra, inspired by Greek myth, is as modern now as it was at its premiere more than a century ago.

One of opera’s greatest voices, Dolora Zajick has delivered knockout Met performances of many of the repertory’s most dramatic mezzo-soprano roles over the past three decades.

The operas of Giuseppe Verdi have been performed around 5,700 times at the Metropolitan Opera, more than those of any other composer by a wide margin.

When the Met staged Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra for the first time in 1932, the company relied on one of its finest singers and actors to portray the all-important title role—American baritone Lawrence Tibbett.

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