Tag

Met HD

Tristan und Isolde in HD – 2026

March 21, 2026

Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde holds a unique position in the annals of opera. To some, it is the peak of the art form; its supreme achievement. To others, it is an interesting work full of declamatory singing, occasional bombast, and much inspired music. I fall into the second camp. Regardless of where you’re positioned, it […]

Arabella in HD

November 22, 2025

Librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal finished the last of the six librettos he wrote for Richard Strauss in 1929 – the year of his death. The resultant opera, Arabella, did not appear until 1933. There are several reasons for this delay, but the biggest is likely the absence of Hofmannsthal to revise the libretto, as it […]

The Barber of Seville in HD – 2025

May 31, 2025

Rossini is life. Nowhere is this vitality as evident as in his Barber. The 24 year old composer was already a veteran when he composed his paen to mirth and human folly. Bart Sher’s production dates back to 2006, but still works. The Barber is so good that it can survive almost anything thrown at […]

Salome in HD

May 17, 2025

The Met’s new production of Strauss’s Mach 2 one-act opera was telecast today. Director Claus Guth, who made his Met debut in this production, placed the location in a dark building in some hard to place time. It certainly wasn’t biblical Galilee or Perea. Before I get to the performance, a word about inflation. Up […]

Aida in HD – 2025

January 25, 2025

Aida returned to the Met’s stage for the 1199th time today. It was the 4th time Verdi’s masterpiece has been telecast in the company’s HD series. This appearance marked the first telecast of Michael Mayer’s new production that replaced Sonja Frisell’s extravaganza which had survived about 270 mountings at the New York opera palace and […]

The Tales of Hoffmann in HD – 2024

October 5, 2024

Bart Sher’s production of Offenbach’s valedictory masterpiece was telecast by the Met for the third time. The last time was in 2015. Each time it’s different. I’ll start with the opera’s ending. It has more versions than a politician’s biography. Today after what once was the end of a Met staging of The Tales of […]

La Rondine in HD – 2024

April 20, 2024

Today’s HD telecast of Puccini’s afternoon off – La Rondine – was a repeat of the production of 2009 but with a different cast. The composer’s attempt to write an Italian opera vaguely in the style of a Viennese operetta contains a lot of beautiful music in the service of a work that’s not close […]

La Forza Del Destino in HD

March 9, 2024

Verdi’s La Forza Del Destino returned to the Met this season after an absence of 18 years. It was staged in a new production supervised by the Polish director Mariusz Trelinski. He moved both the time and places from the middle of the 18th century in Spain and Italy to sometime in the second half […]

Carmen in HD – 2024

January 27, 2024

Bizet’s Carmen is so great a masterpiece that it can withstand anything a deranged opera company can throw at it. Opera is a fragile art form, particularly in the 21st century. But with productions like Carrie Cracknell’s staging of today’s HD telecast combined with the recent new operas that started this season’s series the company […]

Nabucco in HD 2024

January 6, 2024

Today’s telecast of Verdi’s first masterpiece featured two of the singers who appeared the previous time Nabucco was broadcast in HD. Elijah Moshinsky’s 2001 production first appeared in the series seven years ago. Liudmyla Monastyrska was Abigaille then and now as was Dmitry Belosselskiy as Zaccaria. The title role today was performed by the Georgian […]

Florencia en el Amazonas in HD

December 9, 2023

Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s opera was the Metropolitan Opera’s third HD telecast of this season. The work was first performed by the Houston Grand Opera in 1996. This run is Florencia’s first appearance at the Met. Much has been made over two features of the opera neither of which has any bearing on its artistic […]

Malcolm X in HD

November 18, 2023

X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X was telecast today. As a piece of sophisticated parochialism it will grip the hearts of Upper West Side New Yorkers who regularly attend the Met. If you seek a work for the lyric theater that touches a spark common to all men you will not find it […]

Dead Man Walking in HD – Another Technical Screwup

October 21, 2023

The Met’s first HD telecast of this season ended with a whimper – a dead screen and no sound. The transmission stopped when the murderer De Rocher was strapped to a gurney and was being executed. After that nothing. No reprise of the hymn-like song sung by Sister Helen, no applause, no curtain calls, no […]

Don Giovanni in HD – 2023

May 20, 2023

Ivo van Hove’s Jack the Ripper with music by Mozart and sets by Jan Versweyveld masquerading as Le Corbusier was telecast this afternoon from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. The screen and the program said the opera was Don Giovanni, but Mozart’s dramma giocoso had all the giocoso removed by director Hove. The […]

Champion in HD

April 29, 2023

Terence Blanchard’s second opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones which opened the Met’s previous season was such a hit (it will be back next season) that the company staged his first opera Champion this year. The opera tells the story of five time boxing champion Emile Griffith. Musically Blanchard’s first opera is not as […]