Chamber Music & Recitals

To open the Met's 2017-18 season, powerhouse soprano Sondra Radvanovsky tackled one of opera's most fearsome roles, the title druid priestess of Bellini's Norma, who wrestles with love and betrayal before making the ultimate sacrifice on a funeral pyre...

German lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925-2012), recognized as one of the greatest singers of German songs (Lieder), is featured in this two-part recital program of works by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, recorded at the Opera Theatre of...

This recital was filmed in the beautiful, meticulously restored Ancient Conservatoire in Paris, where the composer himself frequently gave concerts. The 24 Preludes are amongst Chopin's most wonderful and important works. Also included on this DVD is a...

When Il trittico premiered at New York's Metropolitan Opera in December 1918, Gianni Schicchi became an immediate hit. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The action in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi takes place in Buoso...

Suor Angelica is one of the three one-act operas that comprise Puccini's Il Trittico. Of the three, it's the most lyrical and tragic; it also features an all female cast. Set in a 17th-century convent near Florence, it tells the tragic tale of a...

Richard is hideous, deformed and full of hatred for the world. He exploits the ambitions of others for his own ends. With unscrupulous virtuosity he clears away every obstacle that lies in his path to becoming king. But even this triumph fails to heal...

Beethoven started composing Leonore in January 1804. The subject - the release to freedom of an unjustly imprisoned man by his devoted wife - was part of the genre of 'rescue operas' which were very popular at the end of the 18th century. The premiere of...

Donizetti's three-act tragic opera Belisario was a resounding success in it's day, driven by it's composer's superlative theatrical instinct and his skillful interweaving of intense tragic narrative and emotional pathos. Belisario is betrayed by his wife...

Alceste is an idealist and a master of hurtful words, always eager to hold up a mirror to his fellow human beings. But he has finally found his match in the young widow C?lim?ne: As rhetorically gifted as he is, she has no intention of giving in to his...

One of the most important dramas in the German language, Georg B?chner's fragile fragment is based on the case of the soldier J. Ch. Woyzeck, who stabbed his lover to death in 1824. B?chner explores the question of our dependence on social conditions,...

Director and author Simon Stone rewrote, updated and questioned Chekhov's famous drama for the present day: with brilliant dialogue, subtle characterization and the ambivalent figures which these so reliably generate. Avoiding pathos, spectacle and...

Johann Sebastian Bach was undoubtedly the greatest musical thinker of his age. Dubbed 'the Old Testament of music' by the conductor and pianist Hans von B?low, the Well-Tempered Clavier is acknowledged to be one of the most significant works ever written...