Nightly Opera Streams, June 15–21

Two mesmerizing modern operas by Philip Glass join a lineup of classic works by Verdi, Rossini, and Gluck for another outstanding week of free Nightly Opera Streams.

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

Shortly before the Met premiere of Glass’s Akhnaten, its star Anthony Roth Costanzo joined with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Mannes Orchestra, and Gandini Juggling to perform excerpts at the Brooklyn Museum.

Learn about one of the greatest voices in Met history—the legendary soprano Leontyne Price, who stars in this week’s stream of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, in a telecast from 1984.

Before the 2008 Met premiere of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, Ela Gandhi spoke about the idea of satyagraha and her grandfather’s incredible legacy.

Learn how dozens of talented backstage wizards spent months refurbishing the sets and costumes of Semiramide before the opera returned to the Met stage in 2018.

Before the 2008 Met premiere of his Satyagraha, acclaimed American composer Philip Glass spoke about Gandhi as an opera subject and why his message still resonates today.

As Rossini’s raging sorceress Armida, soprano Renée Fleming conjured her lustrous vocal powers in Mary Zimmerman’s 2010 Met-premiere production.

Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride demands a sensitive and charismatic singing actor for its heroine. Enter Susan Graham, who took on the title role in Stephen Wadsworth’s powerful staging.

Satyahgraha, Philip Glass’s landmark 1980 work about Gandhi and the development of his philosophy of nonviolence had its Met premiere in 2008. This audio slideshow offers a glimpse of the imaginative design of Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch’s production.

Dive into the details of the visionary pharaoh Akhnaten’s ecstatic Hymn to the Sun with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and host Rhiannon Giddens in this episode of our Aria Code podcast, a collaboration with WQXR.

In the title role of the ancient Babylonian queen, soprano Angela Meade rehearses a scene from Rossini’s Semiramide and discusses the role’s vocal demands with Live in HD host Isabel Leonard.

One of the most memorable aspects of Phelim McDermott’s production of Akhnaten, created in collaboration with the pioneering theater group Improbable, is its incorporation of mesmerizing juggling, designed by choreographer and juggling master Sean Gandini, which seems to make Philip Glass’s music appear before your very eyes.

In Rossini’s Armida, no fewer than six tenors team up against superstar soprano Renée Fleming, who sings the title role of a beautiful but evil sorceress in the times of the Crusades.

In this excerpt from the final act of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, as a mythical Greek priestess, cries out to the goddess Diana to help her make a dreaded sacrifice.

The 2019–20 season saw the company premiere of Philip Glass’s transcendental Akhnaten, which starred countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo as the enigmatic title pharaoh who radically transformed ancient Egyptian society. 

Innovative artists tell the story of Gandhi and his philosophy of non-violence in the Met-premiere production of Philip Glass’s opera.

Resources from the Met’s education department are available for many of the operas featured in this streaming series. Designed for use in the classroom, they are perfect for parents whose kids are now learning from home, or for anyone who’d like to know more about opera.

The inventive director discusses his ritualistic, dreamlike production of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten—including a virtuosic troupe of acrobats and jugglers—which had its Met premiere on November 8, 2019.

As she prepared to take on the title role of Semiramide during the 2017–18 season, Angela Meade spoke about returning Rossini’s under-performed masterpiece to the Met stage.

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