What Should I See?

Check out our broadly defined, admittedly unscientific guide to help you toward your best possible Met experience.

Vocal Fireworks

In opera, the drama can emerge from the storyline, from the costumes and sets, or from the orchestral writing. But more often than not, it is conveyed through extraordinary, carefully composed, knock-your-socks-off vocalism.

Ariadne auf Naxos
Armida
Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Les Contes d’Hoffmann
La Fille du Régiment
Hamlet
La Traviata
Die Zauberflöte 

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.

Armida
Carmen
Elektra
Der Fliegende Holländer
Hamlet
Lulu
Tosca 

Desperados

Opera gets into the murky minds and twisted psyches of outsiders, iconoclasts, and antiheroes like no other art form can.

Carmen
Les Contes d’Hoffmann
La Damnation de Faust
Der Fliegende Holländer
From the House of the Dead
The Nose 

Epic Spectacle

Opera tackles the biggest subjects, and the Met tackles the biggest operas with a vast stage and sophisticated technology that can make even the most jaded theater-goers gasp.

Aida
La Damnation de Faust
Simon Boccanegra
Il Trittico
Turandot 

Myths and Legends

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.

Ariadne auf Naxos
Armida
Attila
Les Contes d’Hoffmann
La Damnation de Faust
Elektra
Der Fliegende Holländer
Hansel and Gretel
Turandot
Die Zauberflöte 

Comedy

We’re not kidding: with music to puncture barriers of time and language, plus a savvy staging from a great production team, a comic opera can be truly hilarious.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia
La Fille du Régiment
Hansel and Gretel
The Nose
Le Nozze di Figaro
Der Rosenkavalier
Il Trittico
Die Zauberflöte

Page to Stage

Some of the greatest masterpieces of literature find new lives in opera—and sometimes these operatic adaptations even surpass their original incarnations.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Carmen
Les Contes d’Hoffmann
La Damnation de Faust
Elektra
From the House of the Dead
Hamlet
Hansel and Gretel
Lulu
The Nose
Le Nozze di Figaro 

For the Family

With innovative staging and a sense of wonder that bounces between fun and awe, some operas appeal to music lovers young and old.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia
La Fille du Régiment
Hansel and Gretel
Die Zauberflöte 

Power Play

No other medium can come close to opera's power to depict power and the struggle to survive, as individuals strive to assert themselves within complex group dynamics.

Aida
Attila
From the House of the Dead
Hamlet
Le Nozze di Figaro
Simon Boccanegra
Stiffelio 

Real People, Real Problems

Some of the greatest operas have thrilled audiences by presenting ordinary people confronting challenging personal issues. These works impress and sometimes disturb by exploring what lies just below the surface of everyday life.

Carmen
La Bohème
Stiffelio
La Traviata
Il Trittico 

Romances

Better than almost any art form, opera fully conveys the highs, lows, and mysteries of passionate love, which it celebrates as an awesome emotion with the power to destroy those who fall in its grasp.

Aida
Armida
La Bohème
Carmen
Les Contes d’Hoffmann
Der Rosenkavalier
Tosca
La Traviata
Turandot 

Mind Games

Opera’s genre-bending characteristics and dramatic qualities make it supremely equipped to explore the murkiest crannies of human fantasy—especially those moments when the delicate shell of sanity breaks down forever.

Les Contes d’Hoffmann
Elektra
Der Fliegende Holländer
From the House of the Dead
Hamlet
Lulu
The Nose