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It is the most operatic of scenarios: The devotion of an ascetic monk who has dedicated his life to God is tested against the allure of the world’s most voluptuous, seductive courtesan. And in this glorious, rarely performed jewel, Massenet milks the melodrama for all it’s worth, clothing the story in music as glamorous and sensual as the seductive title character herself—portrayed in this 2008 Live in HD performance by the great Renée Fleming.
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In his towering penultimate opera, Verdi distills Shakespeare’s tragedy to its purest elements and demonstrates his unsurpassed mastery of characterization and pacing. Unlike his earlier works, which featured many memorable, self-contained arias, duets, and ensemble numbers, Otello proceeds almost seamlessly, with no interruption of the dramatic momentum. Iago’s duplicity, Desdemona’s wrongful death, Otello’s fall—all are made overwhelmingly visceral in a work that shows both Verdi and opera itself at the height of their powers.
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Based on Luis Buñuel’s surrealist film about an invisible force that prevents the attendees of a dinner party from leaving, Thomas Adès’s modern opera is a powerful exploration of isolation and confinement that feels particularly relevant today. Adès creates a unique and captivating sound world, incorporating a number of unusual instruments into the orchestra and asking for increasingly acrobatic vocal feats from the singers to match the escalating confusion and desperation of their characters as their captivity stretches endlessly on.
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In his classic potboiler, Puccini stirs together some of humanity’s strongest motivating forces—love and loyalty, fear and cruelty—to create an operatic thriller that sinks its teeth into the listener with the opening chords and never lets go. Taking place in Rome in 1800, the story concerns a fiery yet devoted diva, the painter/revolutionary she loves, and a sadistic police chief determined to crush political rebellion and claim Tosca for himself. All three are among opera’s most indelible characters.
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The immortal Orpheus myth—something of an origin story for the power of music—has inspired numerous operas and other compositions, including this 1762 masterpiece by Christoph Willibald Gluck. A prime example of what has come to be known as “reform opera,” Orfeo ed Euridice strips away the self-conscious virtuosity and labyrinthine plotlines common in earlier 18th-century opera, replacing them with musical and emotional directness intended to draw the audience more deeply into the drama.
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Few existences are more perilous than those of opera heroines, who must contend with an inexhaustible supply of lethal hazards. But even by such standards, Berg’s Lulutells a particularly harrowing tale. Based on two plays by Frank Wedekind, it is the story of the ultimate femme fatale, who seduces a series of men, kills or causes the death of four of them, is herself victimized along the way, and is ultimately slain by Jack the Ripper while working as a prostitute. Throughout, Berg provides depth, ambiguity, and psychological impact with his unsettling and unforgettable score, prodigious in complexity and power.
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A saga of star-crossed love and family drama set against the strife of the 17th-century English Civil War, Bellini’s bel-canto gem is best known for its mad scene, one of the repertory’s most spectacular. Elvira, a young Puritan woman, is set to marry Arturo, a royalist. But when his duty to the crown comes between them, and Elvira finds herself abandoned on her wedding day, she descends into madness with a breathtaking outpouring of virtuosity that only this style of opera can deliver.
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It is no wonder that Met audiences have gone wild over Karita Mattila’s sizzling Salome. Indisputably one of the greatest Salomes of our time, Mattila utterly incarnates Oscar Wilde’s petulant, willful, and lust-driven heroine. With Strauss’s groundbreaking music magnifying the degenerate atmosphere and building the erotic tension, this is one opera that is as shocking today as it was at its premiere in 1905.
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Donizetti’s bubbly romantic comedy about a spunky landowner, a hapless peasant, and the dubious love potion that may or may not bring them together never fails to delight audiences. In this performance from the Met’s Live in HD series, South African soprano Pretty Yende stars as Adina, imbuing her character with lovable warmth while tossing off effortless coloratura passages from beginning to end. Tenor Matthew Polenzani is Nemorino, Adina’s love-struck admirer, who pours out his heart in the moving aria “Una furtiva lagrima.” The cast also includes baritone Davide Luciano as the swaggering Sergeant Belcore and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo as the wily Dr. Dulcamara, and Domingo Hindoyan conducts Bartlett’s Sher’s charming and colorful production.
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Just as a young woman is about to marry her sweetheart, she is discovered—by the entire village, to say nothing of her fiancé—asleep in the bedroom of a stranger. It takes the young man two acts to figure out that sleepwalking is to blame, and everything ends happily. Natalie Dessay as Amina and Juan Diego Flórez as Elvino deliver bel canto magic and vocal fireworks in Mary Zimmerman’s 2009 production. The Tony award-winning director transfers Bellini’s bucolic tale to a rehearsal room in contemporary New York, where an opera company rehearses La Sonnambula—and where the singers are truly in love with each other.
