Nightly Opera Streams, July 5–11

The next week of free Nightly Opera Streams celebrates one of the 20th century’s preeminent composers with a collection of Richard Strauss’s most popular musical masterpieces. Explore the full lineup with this guide.

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

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.

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.

In his production of Der Rosenkavalier, director Robert Carsen examines the deeply affecting blend of comedy, melancholy, and nostalgia in Strauss’s most popular opera.

As she prepared to star as Countess Madeleine in a revival of Strauss’s Capriccio in 2011, Renée Fleming discussed why she loves singing the composer’s music.

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.

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

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

With a collaboration spanning 60 productions together—including 11 at the Met—few artists had a greater impact on the world of opera during the second half of the 20th century than director Otto Schenk and scenic designer Günther Schneider-Siemssen.

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.

As she prepared to return to reprise her portrayal of Strauss’s Salome in 2008, captivating soprano Karita Mattila discussed the challenges of singing—and dancing—the demanding title role.

Dive into the details of the Marschallin’s monologue on the passing of time with Renée Fleming and host Rhiannon Giddens in this episode of our Aria Code podcast, a collaboration with WQXR.

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.

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.

Take a look back at some of Renée Fleming’s most powerful appearances in the company’s The Met: Live in HD series.

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.

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