What Should I See?
Any opera performed at the Met will appeal to a wide range of tastes and temperaments. Operas used to be divided into categories of “easy,” which generally referred to melodic Italian tales of love, and “difficult,” which meant long and most likely German. Those distinctions don’t hold today: operas come from a multitude of nations, and modern audiences are familiar with many different musical traditions. Met Titles, recordings, videos, books, and online resources have further blurred the distinction in opera between the popular and the obscure. Categorizing operas into genres or areas of interest is an inexact science, but here is a broadly defined guide to help you toward your best possible Met experience.
Vocal Fireworks
Drama in opera can emerge from the dramatic situations, the costumes and sets, the orchestral writing and other elements. But often the drama is conveyed through extraordinary, carefully composed, knock-your-socks-off vocalism.
Hyper-romantic
It seems like only opera, of all art forms, can fully convey the highs, lows, and mysteries of passionate love.
- Lucia di Lammermoor
- Tristan und Isolde
- La Bohème
- Roméo et Juliette
- Carmen
- Aida
Women on the Edge
For centuries, opera provided a voice for women that was denied to them offstage: these operas keep the spotlight firmly on the desperate, dangerous, and enthralling women who break all the rules.
- Lucia di Lammermoor
- Carmen
- Madama Butterfly
- Manon Lescaut
- Norma
- Die Walküre
Rebels and Radicals
Opera has celebrated iconoclasts, outsiders, and misfits since long before being a rebel was cool (and a cliché). With a unique ability to spotlight an individual within a society, these great operas explore those situations where the one confronts the many, and all are changed by the encounter.
- Peter Grimes
- Satyagraha
- Ernani
- The Gambler
- Otello
- Tristan und Isolde
- Carmen
Historical Epic
Sweeping historical dramas and actual historic events have been popular as opera sources for centuries. The full panoply of chorus, orchestra, and production staff brings the sweep of history to the stage, while never losing track of the remarkable individuals who leave the greatest imprints on it.
Myths & Legend
Each opera creates its own reality, and the combined power of music and theater can carry us to lost worlds, or worlds that never were.
Comic
Opera, funny? Oh, yes, especially when written by composers with a deft touch. Comic operas focused on real people in recognizable situations (rather than on mythic heroes or historical figures) and even began to influence so-called serious operas with their fast-moving storytelling techniques.
Madness
Some of opera’s most unforgettable scenes depict the desperate moment when the delicate shell of sanity breaks down.
- Lucia di Lammermoor
- Peter Grimes
- Macbeth
- The Gambler
- Tristan und Isolde
Page to Stage (Literary Operas)
Many of the greatest masterpieces of literature have been magnified in opera, with the music enhancing the words of even the greatest literary figures.
- Macbeth
- Hansel and Gretel
- War and Peace
- The Gambler
- Roméo et Juliette
- Manon Lescaut
Real People, Real Problems
Some of the greatest operas have thrilled audiences by presenting ordinary people like ourselves confronting challenging personal issues. These works impress and sometimes disturb us by exploring what lies just below the surface of everyday life.
- Peter Grimes
- La Fille du Régiment
- Il Barbiere di Siviglia
- La Bohème
- Carmen
- The Gambler
- Madama Butterfly
- Manon Lescaut
- La Traviata
Tragic Romances
Love is often celebrated in opera as an awesome emotion with the power to destroy those who fall in its grasp. These works appeal to the emotions, often using wild and unlikely situations rendered in lush music to accent the plight of individuals at odds with the world around them.
- Otello
- Roméo et Juliette
- Tristan und Isolde
- Aida
- Die Walküre
- Manon Lescaut
- La Bohème
- Norma
- Madama Butterfly
- Ernani
- Un Ballo in Maschera
- La Traviata
- Carmen