Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcasts
2009-10 Live in HD Season

October 10, 2009 – May 8, 2010
Julie Harris Stage

Tickets
MET Opera Guild and WHAT Opera Guild members may purchase their tickets starting on August 21, 2009. (See WHAT Opera Guild at bottom of page for details.)
Tickets go on sale to the general public on September 8, 2009.

Tosca

by Giacomo Puccini
October 10 & 17 at 1pm
Conductor: James Levine
Production: Luc Bondy
Karita Mattila, Marcelo Álvarez, Juha Uusitalo, Paul Plishka
Approximate running time 3 hours 30 minutes / 2 intermissions

“Tosca combines Puccini’s glorious musical inspiration with the melodramatic vitality of one of the great Hitchcock films,” says Met Music Director James Levine, who conducts this new production. The opera tells the story of three people—a famous opera singer, a free-thinking painter, and a sadistic chief of police—caught in a net of love and politics.

Aida

by Giuseppe Verdi
October 24 & 31 at 1pm
Conductor: Daniele Gatti
Production: Sonja Frisell
Violeta Urmana, Dolora Zajick, Johan Botha, Carlo Guelfi, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Stefan Kocán
Approximate running time 4 hours / 2 intermissions

Set in ancient Egypt, Aida is both a heartbreaking love story and an epic drama full of spectacular crowd scenes. A cast of powerful voices and a grand production bring the story to life on the Met stage (and on the HD screen). Violeta Urmana stars in the title role of the enslaved Ethiopian princess, with Dolora Zajick as her rival. Johan Botha plays Radamès, commander of the Egyptian army, and Daniele Gatti conducts. Among the score’s highlights is the celebrated Triumphal March.

Turandot

by Giacomo Puccini
November 7 & 14 at 1pm
Conductor: Andris Nelsons
Production: Franco Zeffirelli
Maria Guleghina, Marina Poplavskaya, Marcello Giordani, Samuel Ramey
Approximate running time 3 hours 30 minutes / 2 intermissions

Director Franco Zeffirelli’s breathtaking production of Puccini’s last opera is a favorite of the Met repertoire. Maria Guleghina plays the ruthless Chinese princess of the title, whose hatred of men is so strong that she has all suitors who can’t solve her riddles beheaded. Marcello Giordani sings Calàf, the unknown prince who eventually wins her love and whose solos include the famous “Nessun dorma.”

Les Contes d’Hoffmann

by Jacques Offenbach
December 19 & January 2, 2010 at 1pm
Conductor: James Levine
Production: Bartlett Sher
Kathleen Kim, Anna Netrebko, Ekaterina Gubanova, Elina Garanc(a, Joseph Calleja, Alan Held
Approximate running time 3 hours / 2 intermissions

Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher (South Pacific) directs this new production, returning after the triumph of his Met Barber of Seville (seen live in HD in the 2006–07 season). Offenbach’s fictionalized take on the life and loves of the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann is a fascinating psychological journey. Met Music Director James Levine conducts Joseph Calleja in the tour-de-force title role. The stellar star cast including Anna Netrebko as the tragic Antonia, Eli-na Garanc(a as the ambiguous Nicklausse, and Alan Held as the demonic four villains.

Der Rosenkavalier

by Richard Strauss
January 9 at 1pm & January 15 (Friday) at 7pm
(NOTE SPECIAL ENCORE DAY & TIME)
Conductor: James Levine
Production: Nathaniel Merrill
Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Christine Schäfer, Eric Cutler, Thomas Allen, Kristinn Sigmundsson
Approximate running time 3 hours / 2 intermissions

Strauss’s comic masterpiece of love and intrigue in 18th-century Vienna stars Renée Fleming as the aristocratic Marschallin and Susan Graham in the trouser role of her young lover. Music Director James Levine conducts a cast that also includes Kristinn Sigmundsson and Thomas Allen.

Carmen

by Georges Bizet
January 16 & 23 at 1pm
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Production: Richard Eyre
Barbara Frittoli, Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Mariusz Kwiecien
Approximate running time 4 hours / 2 intermissions

One of the most popular operas of all time, Carmen “is about sex, violence, and racism—and its corollary: freedom,” says Olivier Award-winning director Richard Eyre about his new production of Bizet’s drama. “It is one of the inalienably great works of art. It’s sexy, in every sense. And I think it should be shocking.” Angela Gheorghiu plays the seductive gypsy of the title in her role debut, opposite Roberto Alagna as the obsessed Don José.

Simon Boccanegra

by Giuseppe Verdi
February 6 & 13 at 1pm
Conductor: James Levine
Production: Giancarlo del Monaco
Adrianne Pieczonka, Marcello Giordani, Plácido Domingo, James Morris
Approximate running time 3 hours 40 minutes / 2 intermissions

Four decades into a legendary Met career, tenor Plácido Domingo makes history singing the title role in Verdi’s gripping political thriller, which is written for a baritone. Adrianne Pieczonka, Marcello Giordani, and James Morris are his co-stars in this moving and tragic story of a father and his lost daughter. James Levine conducts.

Hamlet

by Ambroise Thomas
March 27 & April 3 at 1pm
Conductor: Louis Langrée
Production: Patrice Caurier/Moshe Leiser
Natalie Dessay, Jennifer Larmore, Toby Spence, Simon Keenlyside, James Morris
Approximate running time 3 hours 45 minutes / 1 intermission

The works of Shakespeare have inspired more operatic adaptations than any other writer’s. Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay bring their extraordinary acting and singing skills to two of the Bard’s most unforgettable characters in this new production of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet. For the role of Ophelia, the French composer created an extended mad scene that is among the greatest in opera.

Armida

by Gioachino Rossini
May 1 & 8 at 1pm
Conductor: Riccardo Frizza
Production: Mary Zimmerman
Renée Fleming, Lawrence Brownlee, Bruce Ford, José Manuel Zapata, Barry Banks, Kobie van Rensburg
Approximate running time 4 hours 20 minutes / 2 intermissions

This mythical story of a sorceress who enthralls men in her island prison has inspired operatic settings by a multitude of composers, including Gluck, Haydn, and Dvor?ák. Renée Fleming stars in the title role of Rossini’s version, opposite no fewer than six tenors. Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman returns to direct this new production of a work she describes as “a buried treasure, a box of jewels.” The fanciful and magical tale, Zimmerman says, “has an epic, enchanted quality and a tremendous visual element.”