Live from the Met

Eugene Ormandy conducts a distinguished cast in this English-language version of Johann Strauss’s effervescent operetta. Risë Stevens is sensational as the extravagant Prince Orlofsky, whose costume ball is at the center of the action. Richard Tucker sings Alfred, the luckless opera singer who is wooing his old flame Rosalinde (Marguerite Piazza) and is mistakenly hauled off to prison in place of her husband, Eisenstein (Charles Kullman). Patrice Munsel is Rosalinde’s maid, Adele, John Brownlee sings Dr. Falke, and Jack Gilford gives a hilarious performance as the jailer Frosch. Performance date: December 31, 1986.

For the Metropolitan Opera gala of 1988, two of the greatest opera stars of the time, and long-term singing partners, Luciano Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland, united to perform four famous scenes from Acts I and III of Lucia di Lammermoor, Act III of La Traviata and Act III of Rigoletto. Richard Bonynge conducts. Performance date: January 11, 1987.

This all-star cast is framed by Peter Hall’s gritty, realistic production and conducted by James Levine, who brings out all the surging emotion and gripping drama in Bizet’s score. At the center of the story is Agnes Baltsa, whose smoky mezzo is tailor-made for the gypsy Carmen, an independent woman who glories in obeying only her own rules, but who is haunted by fate. Superstar tenor José Carreras is Don José, the solider from a small town who catches Carmen’s eye and is destroyed by his growing obsession with her. Samuel Ramey is the charismatic matador Escamillo, who lures Carmen away from Don José with tragic result. Leona Mitchell is Micaëla, the simple girl from Don José’s hometown who cannot save him. Performance date: February 28, 1987.

In this legendary production, director John Dexter and designer David Reppa brilliantly captured the stark drama of Poulenc’s only full-length opera, which tells the story of a group of nuns caught in the maelstrom of the French Revolution. Maria Ewing is Blanche de la Force, an aristocratic novice who flees her convent when it is desecrated, only to return and join her fellow nuns as they are led to their execution. The legendary Régine Crespin, in her final Met appearance, is Madame de Croissy, the prioress whose agonizing death haunts Blanche. Jessye Norman sings Mother Lidoine, the new prioress, and Florence Quivar is the comforting Mother Marie. French maestro Manuel Rosenthal conducts. Performance date: April 4, 1987.