Series Detail - Thursday A /

5 Performances

From the House of the Dead

Thursday, November 12, 2009
8:00 pm

With this new production, voted Europe’s best opera staging for 2007, one of opera’s great visionaries makes his Met debut. Patrice Chéreau, renowned for his legendary centennial Ring cycle at Bayreuth, directs Janácek’s drama of human resilience inside a Russian prison. “The penal camp is a different society, parallel to ours, but there are many similarities between the two,” Chéreau declares. “Power, relationships, humiliation, passion—all those things exist in both worlds.” Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen also makes his Met debut, and Peter Mattei leads the ensemble cast.

Watch the director video

A production of the Metropolitan Opera and the Wiener Festwochen, in co-production with Holland Festival, Amsterdam; the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; and Teatro alla Scala, Milan.
Contains brief nudity and mature content.

Composer:  Leos Janácek
Cast: Salonen; Margita, Streit, Hoare, Mattei, White

Sung in Czech with Met Titles in English, German and Spanish

Les Contes d’Hoffmann

Thursday, December 3, 2009
8:00 pm

A powerhouse team joins forces for Offenbach’s psychological fantasy. James Levine conducts, and Tony Award® winner Bart Sher (South Pacific) returns after the triumph of his Met Barber of Seville to direct. Inspired by Kafka, Sher describes his production as “a magical journey in which the character works out different manifestations of his psyche.” Joseph Calleja sings the tour-de-force title role, opposite Anna Netrebko as the tragic Antonia and Alan Held as the demonic four villains.

On December 3, the Met celebrates the opening night of this exciting new production with a gala benefit. Learn more.

Composer:  Jacques Offenbach
Cast: Levine; Kim, Netrebko, Gubanova, Lindsey, Calleja, Held

Sung in French with Met Titles in English, German and Spanish

Carmen

Thursday, December 31, 2009
6:30 pm

"Carmen is about sex, violence, and racism—and its corollary: freedom,” says Olivier Award-winning director Richard Eyre. “It is one of the inalienably great works of art. It’s sexy, in every sense. And I think it should be shocking.” Elina Garanca sings Carmen for the first time at the Met. Roberto Alagna and Jonas Kaufmann share the role of the obsessed Don José, Barbara Frittoli is Micaëla, and Mariusz Kwiecien is the matador Escamillo. Angela Gheorghiu and Olga Borodina sing Carmen in later performances. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.

For information about tickets that include the New Year’s Eve Gala dinner, please call 212.362.6000

On December 31, the Met celebrates New Year's Eve with the opening night of this highly anticipated new production of Bizet’s Carmen. Learn more

Composer:  Georges Bizet
Cast: Nézet-Séguin; Frittoli, Garanca, Alagna, Kwiecien

Sung in French with Met Titles in English, German and Spanish

The Nose

Thursday, March 11, 2010
8:00 pm

Artist William Kentridge defies genres with Shostakovich’s adaptation of Gogol’s story. “The opera is about the terrors of hierarchy,” Kentridge says. “There’s a mixture of anarchy and the absurd that interests me. I love in this opera the sense that anything is possible.” The new production is conducted by definitive Shostakovich interpreter Valery Gergiev. Acclaimed baritone Paulo Szot, who won a Tony Award® for South Pacific, makes his Met debut as the man who wakes up to discover that his nose has disappeared.

Watch the director video




A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the Opéra National de Lyon, France.

Composer:  Dmitri Shostakovich
Cast: Gergiev; Popov, Gietz, Szot

Sung in Russian with Met Titles in English, German and Spanish

Armida

Thursday, April 22, 2010
8:00 pm

Renée Fleming stars as Rossini’s sorceress, opposite no fewer than six tenors. Mary Zimmerman returns to direct, bringing her fine-tuned theatricality to a work she describes as “a buried treasure, a box of jewels.” The fanciful story of the sorceress who enthralls men in her island prison of sensual delights, Zimmerman says, “has an epic, enchanted quality and a tremendous visual element.”

For information about tickets that include the New Production Gala dinner, please call 212.362.6000

Composer:  Gioachino Rossini
Cast: Frizza; Fleming, Brownlee, Ford, Zapata, Banks, van Rensburg

Sung in Italian with Met Titles in English, German and Spanish