Top New York Opera Performances

Attend the Metropolitan Opera House's 'La Bohème' and partake in a quintessential New York City theater experience. Enjoy prime seating in the Met's orchestra section and revel in Puccini's iconic opera: a 4-part performance sung in Italian, though sub-titles on the back of each seat make following along a snap. Offerings include both night performances and matinees.

The opera is set in and around Paris, with familiar landmarks such as the church of St. Sulpice forming important reference points in the story. The opera was originally set in the early 18th century, but the Met’s current production places the story in the late 19th century, the so-called “Belle Époque” and the time when the opera was written. Massenet’s score captures the drama of his most memorable heroine with deft craftsmanship, expressive vocal and orchestral writing, and an almost unparalleled level of sensuality. There is no shortage of passion, but much of the music’s romance is different from what one would expect in an Italian opera, or even a more earthy French work such as Bizet’s Carmen. Some of the most dramatically (and erotically) charged passages rely on the simplest effects.

The season opens with hair-raising drama and spectacular singing as two of opera’s most extraordinary artists star in Macbeth, Verdi’s thrilling take on the immortal Shakespearean tale of the scheming couple determined to seize power at any cost. Following past triumphs in many of Verdi’s signature baritone roles, Quinn Kelsey is the Scottish king haunted by the ghosts of his murderous ascent to the throne, opposite Lise Davidsen—the world’s reigning dramatic soprano—as the power-mad Lady Macbeth, whose ruinous ambition damns them both. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium for a penetrating production by Louisa Proske, a brilliant young director making waves around the world. Rounding out the all-star cast are tenor Freddie De Tommaso as the heroic Macduff and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green as Macbeth’s friend-turned-victim Banquo.

A beloved New York holiday tradition, Mozart’s enchanting fable takes the stage in the Met’s abridged, English-language production by Julie Taymor—the Tony Award–winning director of Broadway’s The Lion King. Running under 90 minutes and dazzling audiences with vibrant sets, colorful costumes, and eye-popping puppetry, it’s the perfect show for the holidays and a delightful introduction to opera for audiences of all ages. At every performance of The Magic Flute, audiences can enjoy free activity books and themed photo opportunities throughout the lobby. Special downloadable activities are also available online to explore before or after your visit. Complimentary face painting will be available before all matinee performances. Holiday Open Houses will take place prior to the performances on December 13 and 19.

Wagner’s final opera is a musical journey unlike any other. The composer preferred to call his mature works “music dramas,” but he set Parsifal even further apart by naming it a Bühnenweihfestspiel, a “festival play for the consecration of a stage”—the stage in question being that of his Bayreuth Festival House. The opera tells the tale of a young man who is destined to renew a brotherhood of knights charged with guarding the relics of Christ’s last days. The psychological, mythical, and mystical possibilities of such a story are obvious, and Wagner’s accomplishment results in an air of reverence that surrounds this piece. Parsifal takes place in and around the sanctuary of the knights of the Holy Grail, at the mythical location of Monsalvat in Spain, during the Middle Ages. The Met’s current production, directed by François Girard, places the action in an unspecified, timeless setting.

Following his smash-hit company debut with The Hours, composer Kevin Puts returns to the Met with his Pulitzer Prize–winning first opera, inspired by the true events of the 1914 Christmas truce, when soldiers spontaneously set aside the horrors of the First World War and crossed the trenches to mingle, exchange gifts, and sing carols with the enemy. A poignant depiction of shared humanity in the most inhumane circumstances, Puts’s grand, cinematic opera—with a libretto by Mark Campbell based on the film Joyeux Noël—has been widely acclaimed since its 2011 premiere, hailed as “an overwhelming emotive experience” by The Guardian. Silent Night receives an evocative staging by James Robinson that takes the audience directly to the battlefields of the Western Front. The star-studded cast, featuring soprano Elza van den Heever and tenors Ben Bliss and Rolando Villazón, among many others, is conducted by debuting maestro Dalia Stasevska.

*The Lion King* is one of Broadway's hottest musicals, but tickets for this popular show are often in hot demand. Get guaranteed access to the acclaimed stage adaptation of the Disney classic with these pre-booked reservations. Choose from a range of seating selections and showtimes, including weekend, weekday, and matinee options.

See the highlights of New York City at your own pace and schedule with a hop-on hop-off tour. Relax and enjoy the sights from an open-top double-decker bus. Depending on the option you pick, access both Downtown and Uptown routes in Manhattan, a Brooklyn tour plus other extras. Along the way, hop off to see the attractions that interest you most.

This grandest of grand operas features an epic backdrop for what is in essence an intimate love story. Set in ancient Egypt and packed with magnificent choruses, complex ensembles, and elaborate ballets, Aida never loses sight of its three protagonists. Few operas have matched Aida in its exploration of the conflict of private emotion and public duty, and perhaps no other has remained to the present day so unanimously appreciated by audiences and critics alike. The libretto indicates merely that the opera takes place in “ancient Egypt, in the time of the pharaohs.” This may sound vague, but it was a clear direction to approach the drama as myth rather than anthropology or history. The score of Aida is a sophisticated example of Italian Romanticism, imbued with a convincingly mysterious and exotic hue. Making no claims to authenticity, Verdi created a unique musical palette for this opera.

Set in an idealized Vienna of the past, Strauss’s most popular opera concerns a wise woman of the world who is involved with a much younger lover but ultimately forced to accept the laws of time, giving him up to a pretty young heiress. Hofmannsthal’s fascinating libretto deftly combines comedy, dreamy nostalgic fantasy, genuine human drama, and light but striking touches of philosophy and social commentary. Strauss’s magnificent score, likewise, works on several levels, combining the refinement of Mozart with the epic grandeur of Wagner. The opera is originally set in Vienna in the 1740s. Genuine historical references are merged with fictitious inventions (like the “noble custom” of the presentation of the silver rose to a fiancée, which never actually existed) and anachronisms (like the Viennese Waltz, which did not yet exist at that time) but The Met’s current production moves the setting to the last years of the Habsburg Empire.

The source of this popular opera is a single chapter in the biblical Book of Judges, and the brevity of the tale did nothing to prevent it from becoming one of the world’s great stories of love (or at least passion)—as well as the archetypal depiction of a man betrayed by an immoral woman. Saint-Saëns’s opera, along with other artistic renderings across multiple genres, has had an important role in the popularization of this tale. Despite tepid success early on, Samson et Dalila eventually conquered the operatic world and has proven itself a magnificent evening of theater. The score of this opera teems with color and dramatic aptitude and is a worthy compendium of Saint-Saëns’s diversified genius. Portions of the opera, including Dalila’s seduction aria “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” and the extraordinary ballet sequence in the final scene—the Bacchanale—are known well beyond the opera house.

The third and final collaboration between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte is a fascinating paradox: a frothy comedy of manners with an intensely dark take on human nature; an old story (it has antecedents in Boccaccio, Shakespeare, and Cervantes, among others) with a startlingly modern tone; and a beautiful score depicting questionable behavior. Così fan tutte was only moderately successful at its premiere and remained just outside the standard repertoire for more than a century. Così still poses unique challenges, and correspondingly unique rewards, for the public today. Every possible impression of love—from the loftiest to the basest—is explored in this extraordinary opera. The Met’s current production updates the action to an amusement park inspired by Coney Island in the 1950s.

Jenůfa takes place in a remote Moravian village in the last decades of the 19th century. Janáček’s focus on common people with real problems connects his work conceptually to what Puccini, Mascagni, and others were doing in the verismo operas of Italy at roughly the same time. The score features one of opera’s most evocative uses of the orchestra. It is the sung music, however, that makes Jenůfa indelible. Because the vocal writing is so closely related to the Czech language, even audiences who don’t understand Czech can appreciate the acoustical resonance of the original setting. Among the notable vocal highlights are the Kostelnička’s Act II monologue, tracing her mental gyrations with both drama and subtlety, and Jenůfa’s final narrative, in which the music takes the audience through the transformative process of forgiveness as words alone never could.

Often cited as Italian opera’s greatest tragedy, Otello is a miraculous union of music and drama—a masterpiece as profound philosophically as it is thrilling theatrically. Shakespeare’s tale of an outsider, a great hero who can’t control his jealousy, was carefully molded by the librettist Arrigo Boito into a taut and powerful libretto. All three lead roles are demanding—making the opera a challenge to produce—but the role of Otello in particular requires an astounding natural instrument capable of both powerful and delicate sounds, superb musical intelligence, and impressive acting abilities. Otello is set on the island of Cyprus, originally in the late 15th century. The island itself represents an outpost of a European power under constant attack from an encroaching, hostile adversary. The current production by Bartlett Sher moves the action to the time of the opera’s creation. The score of Otello is remarkable for its overall intensity and dramatic insight.

A searingly dramatic setting of Friedrich Schiller’s play about Mary, Queen of Scots, and her political and personal rivalry with Queen Elizabeth I of England, Maria Stuarda had a troubled genesis, despite its musical and theatrical brilliance, and only recently achieved a place in the repertory. These two fearsome rivals embody different perceptions of royalty, which were very much in direct conflict at that moment in time, and the opera’s drama is true to history in a way the facts are not. For all the beauty of its orchestral writing, Maria Stuarda is a prime example of the mid–19th-century bel canto style—the drama is firmly embedded in the vocal parts. A notable curiosity of the score is the wide range of casting possibilities for the two leading ladies: either role can be (and has been) sung by a soprano or a mezzo-soprano. Much depends on the contrast of the voices, especially in the great confrontation scene at the end of Act I.

Puccini’s “American” opera, based on David Belasco’s play The Girl of the Golden West, had its glamorous and highly publicized world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera, with the composer in the audience. The drama is set during the California Gold Rush, and the girl of the title is one of Puccini’s most appealing heroines—a strong, independent woman determined to win the man she loves. Although it fell out of favor with audiences for a few decades following its original success, Fanciulla has rebounded in popularity in recent years and is now counted among Puccini’s best works. The opera unfolds in the mountains of California during the Gold Rush in 1849–50. The anachronistic presence of a Pony Express rider and a Wells Fargo agent would indicate a date after 1860, but historical accuracy is not the goal in this tale. Puccini was enchanted with Belasco’s fictional setting, with its combination of mythic and grittily realistic elements.

The supernatural story takes place in the “bardo,” a transitional plane between the end of this life and the beginning of the next, populated by those who resist all the powers of light and darkness and refuse to accept their fates. The action revolves around 11-year-old Willie, recently deceased son of Abraham Lincoln, whose grief-stricken visits to Willie’s tomb prevent his son’s spirit from moving on. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts an ensemble cast led by baritone Peter Mattei as Lincoln, alongside a superlative group of singers as the kaleidoscopic residents of the bardo, who band together to help Willie escape being trapped there for eternity—including soprano Christine Goerke, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. Director Lileana Blain-Cruz has created an otherworldly setting for this unique and uniquely American tale, which arrives at the Met in time for the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations.