Susan Hilferty

Any new Met production of Verdi’s beloved tragedy La Traviata would be noteworthy, but Michael Mayer’s dazzling staging, which premiered during the 2018–19 season, was doubly significant as it marked Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s first performances as the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director. On the podium for this Live in HD transmission, Nézet-Séguin leads a starry ensemble. As Violetta, the consumptive heroine fighting to find true happiness, soprano Diana Damrau delivers yet another compelling portrayal on the Met stage. Tenor Juan Diego Flórez sings his first Verdi role with the company, as Violetta’s ardent yet impetuous lover, Alfredo, and baritone Quinn Kelsey rounds out the principal cast as Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s implacable father.

This darkly satirical musical reframes American history through the eyes of those who attempted – successfully or not – to kill US presidents. Structured as a surreal carnival sideshow, the piece weaponises American musical traditions – vaudeville, folk ballads, barbershop quartets, patriotic Sousa-style marches and Bacharach pop – to undercut the myth of the “American Dream,” exposing how frustration, alienation and entitlement can curdle into violence.

Back in the kitchen of the Gabriel family, the country is now in the midst of the general election for President. In the course of one evening in the house they grew up in, history (both theirs and our country's), money, politics, family, art, and culture are chopped up and mixed together, while a meal is made around the kitchen table.

The fourth and final play in this captivating series, Regular Singing, opened on November 22, 2013 – the 50th Anniversary of JFK's assassination that shocked the world.

A year after Sweet and Sad, the Apple Family again share a meal in Rhinebeck, NY, as they sort through personal and political feelings of loss and confusion on the morning of the day the country will choose the next president. Like the first two plays in this trilogy, Sweet and Sad and That Hopey Changey Thing, Sorry opens on the day that it is set, November 6, 2012: Election Day.

Recorded during her Speak Now World Tour in 2011, this live recording collects 18 performances from the country-pop starlet, including almost all songs from her 2010 studio album "Speak Now".

Hungry is the first in a three-play cycle introducing us to the Gabriels of Rhinebeck, New York. These three plays unfold in real time and track the lives of the Gabriels throughout the coming presidential election year. To the rhythm of peeling, chopping and mixing, Hungry places us in the center of the Gabriel’s kitchen. The family discusses their lives and disappointments, and the world at large and nearby. As they struggle against the fear of being left behind, the family attempts to find resilience in the face of loss.

A concert film directed by and featuring the music of Laurie Anderson, filmed at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, during the summer of 1985. The film includes songs from her 1984 album Mister Heartbreak and selections from her 1983 United States I–IV stage shows, along with eclectic, experimental visuals blending film, animation, dance and electronics.