Nightly Opera Streams, May 25–31

From ancient Troy to a provincial Italian village to the depths of hell itself, this week’s streams offer an epic operatic journey. Use this guide to plan your itinerary.

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

In May 2020, General Manager Peter Gelb spoke with soprano Karita Mattila about her experience singing the fearsome title role of Strauss’s Salome.

Last May, tenor Matthew Polenzani and director Bartlett Sher joined Met Executive Stage Director Paula Suozzi for a virtual conversation about L’Elisir d’Amore and took questions about the opera from students.

In more than 300 Met performances, great Italian soprano Renata Scotto, who stars in this week’s stream of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, riveted audiences with her idiomatic singing and powerful acting.

As she prepared to return to reprise her portrayal of Strauss’s Salome in 2008, captivating soprano Karita Mattila discussed the challenges of singing—and dancing—the demanding title role.

Throwing herself wholly into every role she played, French soprano Natalie Dessay was one of the Met’s most magnetic artists for more than two decades.

One of the repertory’s most glamorous operas has been matched by equally glamorous casts in more than 200 Met performances since its company premiere in 1907.

Director Francesco Zambello and stars Susan Graham and Deborah Voigt discuss the 2012 revival of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, in which powerful women dominate the action.

In this 2008 video, Renata Scotto—star of this week’s Manon Lescaut stream—Renée Fleming, and Patricia Racette discuss some of opera’s most unconventional heroines, illustrated by exciting clips from Met telecasts.

Goethe’s seminal Faust has inspired a number of operatic masterpieces, including Berlioz’s towering La Damnation de Faust, which reappeared on the Met stage in 2008 after more than a century.

An opera that was born in scandal and makes sensation its stock and trade has enjoyed a fittingly tumultuous and exciting history at the Metropolitan, from its notorious premiere in 1907 to the spectacular 2008 performance being streamed this week.

In this excerpt from the final act of Les Troyens, Berlioz’s monumental adaptation of Virgil’s Aeneid, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham is the tragic Dido, abandoned by Aeneas and haunted by visions as she plans her own death.

The extraordinary and beloved Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who died in 2017, is featured in this week’s stream of Verdi’s La Traviata.

Before the 2008 premiere of his production of La Damnation de Faust, the visionary director Robert Lepage discussed his approach to staging Berlioz’s grand “dramatic legend.”

Set and costume designer Santo Loquasto, a longtime Broadway master and four-time Tony-winner, has created striking sets and costumes for four Met productions, including the staging of Salome being screened this week.

French soprano Natalie Dessay is Amina, the sleepwalking heroine of Bellini’s La Sonnambula, in this exquisite aria from the opera’s second act.

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.

In his imaginative production of L’Elisir d’Amore, director Bartlett Sher uncovers the patriotic fervor simmering underneath the opera’s enchanting surface charm.

Mary Zimmerman’s production of La Sonnambula, which premiered in 2009, has one foot in a Swiss village, the other in a rehearsal room, where the director recreated the transcendent moments that happen when great artists are at ease.

Marcello Giordani, who passed away in October 2019 and is featured in this week’s stream of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, was one of the Met’s brightest star tenors in recent decades.

It seems only yesterday that Angela Meade was a voice student competing in the Met’s National Council Auditions. Now she’s one of opera’s most celebrated stars. The genial diva discusses her rise to the top ranks of the world’s sopranos.