Great Performances at the Met

The Season 5 premiere features Donizetti's comic "Don Pasquale," starring soprano Anna Netrebko as a penniless young woman who tricks the wealthy Don (John Del Carlo) into thinking he's married her, then acts like a shrew so that he will consent to her marrying his nephew Ernesto (Matthew Polenzani).

Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" stars bass René Pape as the 16th-century Russian tsar whose reign is challenged by a novice monk (Aleksandrs Antonenko) masquerading as the dead Tsarevich Dimitri, whose murder opened the door for Boris' ascension. The cast also includes mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk as Princess Marina, bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin as Rangoni and bass Mikhail Petrenko as Pimen. The title role is considered one of the greatest bass roles in opera.

Verdi's "Don Carlo," about a Spanish prince (Roberto Alagna) who falls for the French princess (Marina Poplavskaya) he's supposed to marry as part of a Spanish-French peace treaty, only to have his father (Ferruccio Furlanetto) decide to wed her himself.

A production of Puccini's "La Fanciulla del West," about an Old West saloon owner (Deborah Voigt) in a California gold-rush town who'll stop at nothing to get the man (Marcello Giordani) she wants.

A production of Christoph Willibald Gluck's "Iphigénie en Tauride," based on a Greek myth in which a high priestess (Susan Graham) is reunited with her brother (Placido Domingo) after a lengthy separation.

Composer John Adams conducts the Met premiere of his acclaimed opera "Nixon in China," about the 37th U.S. president's historic 1972 visit to communist China. Baritone James Maddalena, who created the role of Nixon in the original 1987 production, stars, with Janis Kelly as Pat Nixon; Richard Paul Fink as Henry Kissinger; Robert Brubaker as Mao Zedong; Kathleen Kim as Mao's wife Chiang Ch'ing; and Russell Braun as Chou En-lai.

Natalie Dessay stars in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" as the fragile title character, whose brother (Ludovic Tézier) forces her into an arranged marriage due to his hatred for the family of the man (Joseph Calleja) she loves. Host: Renée Fleming.

Rossini's comic "Le Comte Ory" stars Juan Diego Flórez in the title role, a count who competes with his page (Joyce DiDonatofor, in a trouser role) for the hand of a lonely countess (Diana Damrau).

Renée Fleming stars in Richard Strauss' "Capriccio," about a widowed countess who ponders whether the music or the written word is more important to musical drama while being wooed by a composer (Joseph Kaiser) and a poet (Russell Braun).

A production of Verdi's "Il Trovatore," in which brothers (Marcelo Álvarez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky) compete for the affections of the same woman (Sondra Radvanovsky). Dolora Zajick costars as Azucena, the gypsy with a dark secret.