The Met Live in HD 2012-13 Season  Summaries

Les Troyens (Berlioz)

January 5, 2013 -  5. pm (note earlier time) 

The Met offers worldwide HD audiences a rare opportunity to witness Berlioz’s vast epic, last performed at the Met in 2003. Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Marcello Giordani, and Dwayne Croft lead the star-studded cast, portraying characters from the Trojan War. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi marshals the enormous and spectacular musical forces involved.

Maria Stuarda  (Donizetti) - Met Premiere

January 19, 2013 – 5.55 pm

The stunning Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, takes on the virtuosic bel canto role of the doomed Mary, Queen of Scots. Director David McVicar turns to the second opera of Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy, which explores regal characters at fateful moments of their lives. Elza van den Heever sings Elizabeth I, and Maurizio Benini conducts.

Rigoletto  (Verdi)  -New Production

February 16, 2013 – 5.55 pm

Director Michael Mayer has placed his new production of Verdi’s gripping  tragedy in Las Vegas in 1960. In this production, inspired by the antics of the Rat Pack, Piotr Beczala is the womanizing Duke of Mantua, Željko Lucic is his tragic sidekick, Rigoletto, and Diana Damrau is Rigoletto's daughter, Gilda.

Parsifal (Wagner) -  New Production

March 2, 2013-  5 pm (note earlier time) 

The great German tenor Jonas Kaufmann stars in the title role of the innocent who finds wisdom in François Girard's new vision for Wagner's final masterpiece. His fellow Wagnerian luminaries include Katarina Dalayman as the mysterious Kundry, Peter Mattei as the ailing Amfortas, Evgeny Nikitin as the wicked Klingsor, and René Pape as the noble knight Gurnemanz. Daniele Gatti conducts.

Francesca da Rimini (Zandonai)

March 16, 2013 – 4 pm (note earlier time) 

Zandonai's compelling and melodic opera, inspired by an episode from Dante's Inferno, returns in the Met's ravishingly beautiful production, last seen in 1986. Dramatic soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek and tenor Marcello Giordani are the doomed lovers. Marco Armiliato conducts.

Giulio Cesare (Handel) New Production

April 27, 2013  - 5 pm (note earlier time) 

The opera that conquered London in Handel’s own time comes to the Met in David McVicar’s lively production. Leading countertenor David Daniels is Julius Ceasar opposite the remarkable French soprano Natalie Dessay as an irresistibly exotic Cleopatra. Baroque specialist Harry Bicket conducts.