Don Giovanni

First staged at the Teatro La Fenice in 1846, Verdi’s ninth opera, Attila, returns to the stage of La Scala on December 7th. Following the inauguration of the 2015-2016 Season with Giovanna d’Arco and in anticipation of Macbeth, with Attila Musical Director Riccardo Chailly continues his study of Verdi’s early works, renewing a successful collaboration with creative director Davide Livermore that began with his acclaimed production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale for La Scala. In this complex opera Verdi experiments with fresh perspectives, featuring spectacular historical settings, introspective angles and moral uncertainties. Attila demands of its performers not only passion and confidence, but also the ability to find subtle accents and psychological nuances.

Notre Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of the cathedral of Notre-Dame and of his impossible and tragic love for Esmeralda, a beautiful gypsy. A love condemned by injustice and hypocrisy. Quasimodo forced by his ugliness to look at the world from the top of a tower one day he falls madly in love with Esmeralda who sees dancing and singing on the square in front of the cathedral. But Esmeralda is in love with Febo, the handsome captain of the King's guards. Febo is fiancé of Fiordaliso, a young and rich bourgeois, but the exotic and sensual beauty of the gypsy does not leave indifferent the man who immediately falls in love with her. Even Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, is attracted by the gypsy and spying on the moves of the two lovers in a raptus of jealousy and repressed carnal desire to get rid of the rival stabbing Febo behind.

Live performance from the Zurich Opera House, January 2002.

The gorgeous and evocative Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production continues with this second opera in Wagner’s Ring cycle. Hildegard Behrens brings deep empathy to Brünnhilde, the favorite daughter of the god Wotan (James Morris) who nevertheless defies him. Morris’s portrayal of Wotan is deservedly legendary, as is Christa Ludwig, as Fricka. Jessye Norman and Gary Lakes are Sieglinde and Siegmund, and Kurt Moll is the threatening Hunding. James Levine and the Met orchestra provide astonishing color and drama. (Performed April 8, 1989)

Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner.

Live performance by the Bolshoi Theatre at the Palais Garnier, Opéra National de Paris, 2008.

Live performance from the Komische Oper Berlin, February 15 2016.

Live performance for Garsington Opera, June-July, 2016.

Tenor Jonas Kaufmann is riveting as the title character of Gounod’s popular opera, seen in this Live in HD presentation of Des McAnuff’s thrilling 2011 production that places the mythical and timeless story in an early 20th-century setting. René Pape as Méphistophélès is menacing and elegant in equal measure, and Marina Poplavskaya delivers a searingly intense portrayal of the innocent Marguerite. Russell Braun as her brother, Valentin, shines in his Act II aria. On the podium, Yannick Nézet-Séguin brings out all the lyricism and drama of Gounod’s score.

Stephen Wadsworth’s production of Mussorgsky’s epic masterpiece brilliantly captures the suffering and ambition of the Russian people at a critical time in their nation’s history. René Pape is riveting as the Tsar of the title, giving a commanding and charismatic performance of one of the greatest bass roles in the repertoire—his Boris is dominating, tortured, flawed and utterly unforgettable. The extraordinary cast and the Met Orchestra and Chorus are led by Russian maestro Valery Gergiev, the foremost Mussorgsky interpreter of our time.

An Egyptian military commander, Radamès, struggles to choose between his love for the enslaved Ethiopian princess Aida, and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. To complicate the story further, the Pharaoh's daughter Amneris is in love with Radamès, although he does not return her feelings.