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, from the costumes and sets, or from the orchestral writing. But more often than not, the drama is conveyed through extraordinary, carefully composed, knock-your-socks-off vocalism.
La Cenerentola
L’Elisir d’Amore
Lucia di Lammermoor
The Magic Flute
Rigoletto
La Sonnambula
La Traviata
Il Trovatore
Passion & Romance
It seems like only opera, of all art forms, can fully convey the highs, lows, and mysteries of passionate love, which is 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 lovelorn individuals.
Adriana Lecouvreur
La Bohème
Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci
Don Giovanni
Eugene Onegin
La Gioconda
Lucia di Lammermoor
Madama Butterfly
The Queen of Spades
La Rondine
Rusalka
La Traviata
Thaïs
Tristan und Isolde
Il Trovatore
Die Walküre
Women on the Edge
For centuries, opera provided a voice for women that was denied them offstage: these operas keep the spotlight firmly on the desperate, dangerous, and enthralling women who break all the rules.
Lucia di Lammermoor
Madama Butterfly
Salome
La Sonnambula
Thaïs
Die Walküre
Men Behaving Badly
Many forms of drama like to celebrate the outsider, the iconoclast, or the antihero who thumbs his nose at society’s conventions. Opera can get into the murky minds and twisted psyches of these bad boys like no other art form.
The Queen of Spades
Rigoletto
Rusalka
Siegfried
Thaïs
Fantasy & Legend
Each opera creates its own reality, and the combined power of music and theater can carry us to lost worlds, magical worlds, or worlds that never were.
La Cenerentola
La Damnation de Faust
The Magic Flute
Orfeo ed Euridice
The Ring
Rusalka
Tristan und Isolde
Madness & Obsession
Some of opera’s most unforgettable scenes depict the desperate moment when the delicate shell of sanity breaks down.
La Damnation de Faust
Don Giovanni
Lucia di Lammermoor
The Queen of Spades
Salome
Thaïs
Tristan und Isolde
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.
La Bohème
Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci
Madama Butterfly
La Rondine
La Traviata
New Visions
Some innovators create new works of art; others see classics in a new way. For audiences interested in the up-to-the-moment theatrical approaches, these productions will fit the bill.
La Damnation de Faust
Doctor Atomic
Madama Butterfly
La Sonnambula
Il Trovatore