The Metropolitan Opera: Don Giovanni

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.

Radiant mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and dashing Italian tenor Marcello Giordani are unlucky lovers in La Damnation de Faust, Hector Berlioz’s classic take on dancing with the devil.

Verdi’s IL TROVATORE again storms the Met stage in a star-studded, anvil-wielding cast , including Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Marcelo Álvarez sings Manrico, the troubadour of the title. The story is well-known already: The gypsy Azucena has harbored a grudge for thirty years, but she is about to have revenge at last. Meanwhile, her son Manrico is in love with Leonora, but so is his arch-enemy, the Count Di Luna. A pot-boiler, where every tune is a hit.

The Met assembled an ideal cast for François Girard’s acclaimed new production of Wagner’s final masterpiece: Jonas Kaufmann in the title role of the fool “made wise by compassion”, René Pape as Gurnemanz, the veteran Knight of the Grail, Katarina Dalayman as Kundry, Peter Mattei is Amfortas, the anguished ruler of the Grail’s kingdom, and Evgeny Nikitin sings the evil magician Klingsor.

A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.

In Depression-era Winnipeg, a legless beer baroness hosts a contest for the saddest music in the world, offering a grand prize of $25,000.

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

The film explores the relationships that a limousine driver, a doctor, and a real estate agent have amongst each other and with Yo-Yo Ma as he travels to Canada to perform Bach's Cello Suites.

American gunslinger Sean Rafferty—aka The Montana Kid—is unable to find someone to duel in a Canadian town where no one understands the brutal code of the American Wild West.

On the invitation of her childhood best friend Patsy McCann née Willets, famed opera singer Francesca Prine - whose real name is Marie Beck - returns to Marmora, Ontario to sing in a benefit concert. Patsy and Marie were best friends from the time Marie and her family arrived in Marmora when she was ten years old to the time she left Marmora at age fifteen, which was thirty years prior. With the exception of Don Rayford on who Marie had a crush, Patsy was shy Marie's only friend in Marmora. However, Marie and Patsy have not been in touch since due to issues that drove Marie out of town at the time. Those issues include Marie being physically abused by her alcoholic mother, but most specifically what happened the evening of the Sadie Hawkins dance - where Don accompanied Marie - and post dance down by the railroad tracks. Marie and Patsy's reunion may not be able to endure the thirty years of silence and the events of that night.

Mozart’s early masterpiece returned to the Met for the first time in more than a decade with Music Director Emeritus James Levine, who led the work’s company premiere in 1982, again on the podium. Tenor Matthew Polenzani brings both steely resolve and compassionate warmth to the title king of Crete, who is faced with an impossible decision. With her rich mezzo-soprano, Alice Coote sings the trouser role of Idomeneo’s son Idamante, who loves the Trojan princess Ilia, sung with delicate lyricism by Nadine Sierra. Elza van den Heever gives a thrillingly unhinged portrayal of the jealous Elettra. Jean Pierre-Ponnelle’s timeless production blends the grandeur of ancient myth with the elegance of Enlightenment ideals.

Met Music Director James Levine leads this Live in HD presentation of Wagner’s early Romantic opera, starring Johan Botha in the title role of the minnesinger torn between earthly passion and true love. Eva-Maria Westbroek is Elisabeth, whose unswerving devotion redeems Tannhäuser’s soul, and Peter Mattei sings Wolfram, his faithful friend. Michelle DeYoung as the love goddess Venus and Günther Groissböck as Landgraf Hermann complete the cast. Otto Schenk’s classic production was the first of his acclaimed Wagner stagings at the Met.

Rising Met star Angela Meade is Elvira, the young woman caught between three men: her lover, the nobleman-turned-outlaw Ernani (Marcello Giordani); her guardian, the rich, elderly de Silva, who wants her for himself (Ferruccio Furlanetto); and Don Carlo, the King of Spain, who also desires Elvira (Dmitri Hvorostovsky). Verdi’s early drama is full of sweeping melody and rousing rhythms, delivered masterfully by the Met Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Marco Armiliato.

Gluck’s gripping adaptation of the ancient Greek myth is vividly brought to life by a stellar cast in Stephen Wadsworth’s atmospheric production. Oreste is driven by the Furies to atone for killing his mother Clytemnestre. When he and his companion Pylade are shipwrecked on the island of Tauride, the king Thoas demands they be sacrificed. At the center of the drama is Iphigénie, Oreste’s long-lost sister. Forced to live among her enemies, she holds the lives of the captives in her hands—unaware that one of them is her brother. (Iphigénie en Tauride is performed in an adaptation of the 1779 Paris version edited by Gerhard Croll, by arrangement with Bärenreiter.)