Movies: Jay David Saks

What happened to Figaro and his friends after the events told in Rossini’s and Mozart’s operas? One possible sequel is told in John Corigliano’s “grand opera buffa” The Ghosts of Versailles—an uproariously funny and deeply moving work inspired by Bea...

"Irresistible" (Opera News) rising-star mezzo Elina Garanca triumphs as Rossini's Cinderella in this delightful Metropolitan Opera production. "As close to pure joy as you will find in a big-time opera house" (New Yorker), conquering audiences and cr...

The opera's dramatic structure frames and enhances the characters. Scenes of magnificence regularly alternate with scenes of darkness and squalor. From sumptuous interiors, we move to a dark street, a lonely inn. The secondary figures are astutely co...

Kristine Opolais is the young woman whose conflicting desires for love and luxury lead to her tragic end, and Roberto Alagna plays the man who falls for her in Puccini’s early hit. Richard Eyre’s elegant production, which sets the action in 1940s occ...

Wagner’s Romantic opera demands singing actors who can truly inhabit their parts, and that’s just what we have here. Is it possible for a Knight of the Holy Grail to look more enticing than Peter Hofmann? No wonder Elsa (Eva Marton) falls in love at ...

Live Metropolitan Opera performance March, 1985....

Luciano Pavarotti brings his spectacular voice and artistry to one of the most famous of all tenor roles—Manrico, the ardent troubadour, trapped in an impossible situation by forces beyond his control. The sensational Dolora Zajick, only days after h...

Tamino, a handsome prince, and Papageno, a bird-catcher, are sent by the Queen of Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from captivity under the high priest Sarastro. Julie Taymor's abridged, English-language production of the classic Mozart opera....

This deliciously dark take on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tale, appealing to audiences of all ages, was part of the Met’s popular English-language holiday series. Alice Coote and Christine Schäfer star as the famous siblings lost in the woods, w...

It is a rare opera indeed that calls for one soprano diva and no fewer than six tenors. Mary Zimmerman’s fanciful production of Rossini’s drama, designed by Richard Hudson and with choreography by Graciela Daniele, provides the perfect setting for su...

John Copley’s colorful production, with designs by Beni Montresor, was created around the beloved superstar Luciano Pavarotti. As the simple, good-hearted Nemorino, he enchanted audiences with his larger-than-life personality as well as his golden vo...

When the most voluptuous, sought-after courtesan in the world meets an ascetic monk whose life is devoted to God, you know erotic sparks are going to fly. And when the clash takes place in a glorious, but rarely performed, opera by Massenet, it’s a d...

Inspired by Wagner’s own tortured affair with the wife of his patron, this searing masterwork is based on Arthurian legend and tells of an illicit romance between a Breton nobleman and the Irish princess betrothed to his uncle and king. The composer’...

Verdi's early masterpiece is based on a Victor Hugo play with a complicated plot concerning a young woman and the three men vying for her affections—her elderly uncle, a king destined to become Holy Roman Emperor, and a bandit who is actually an over...

It is no wonder that Met audiences have gone wild over Karita Mattila’s sizzling Salome. Indisputably one of the greatest Salomes of our time, Mattila utterly incarnates Oscar Wilde’s petulant, willful, and lust-driven heroine. With Strauss’s groundb...

Verdi’s admiration for Shakespeare led to such masterpieces as Othello and Falstaff, and if the earlier Macbeth isn’t on their exalted level it’s still a powerfully dramatic opera that hews closely to the original’s story line. The MET’s production r...

Puccini’s musical thriller of lust, murder, and politics is one of the most dramatically riveting operas in the repertoire. Luc Bondy’s production, with sets by Richard Peduzzi and costumes by Academy Award-winning designer Milena Canonero, opened th...

Radiant mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and dashing Italian tenor Marcello Giordani are unlucky lovers in La Damnation de Faust, Hector Berlioz’s classic take on dancing with the devil....

The world’s most famous love story comes to operatic life with superstars Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna playing the star-crossed young couple. The abandon and ardor of their performances brought audiences to their feet in both the opera house and ...

Director and choreographer Mark Morris’s production of Gluck’s masterpiece updates the immortal story from its ancient Greek roots to the timeless present, where, he says, “the union of chorus and dancers feels inevitable and inseparable.” With costu...