SeokJong Baek

Puccini’s exhilarating drama of the Wild West returns in a new staging by celebrated British director Richard Jones, marking the company’s first new production of La Fanciulla del West in more than 30 years. Soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė adds to her already remarkable Met repertoire, making her role debut as Minnie, the tough tavern owner with a heart of gold who finds love when she least expects it. Tenor SeokJong Baek is the dashing bandit who rambles into the remote California mining town to steal her heart, opposite baritone Christopher Maltman as the lawman determined to deliver rough justice—and win Minnie for himself. Maestro Keri-Lynn Wilson takes the podium to conduct one of opera’s most action-packed adventures, live from the Met stage to cinemas worldwide. This live cinema transmission is part of The Met: Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.

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The success of Verdi’s third opera, a stirring drama about the fall of ancient Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco), catapulted the 28-year-old composer to international fame. The music and Verdi himself were subsumed into a surge of patriotic fervor culminating in the foundation of the modern nation of Italy. Specifically, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves ('Va, pensiero'), in which the Israelites express their longing for their homeland, came to stand for the country’s aspirations for unity and that exciting era in Italian history, the Risorgimento, or 'Resurgence'.

The San Francisco Opera Presents Gounod's Romeo and Juliet. Directed for the screen by Frank Zamacona in 2019

Pious restraint comes face to face with sensuous hedonism in Camille Saint-Saëns’s grand-opera retelling of the Bible story of Samson and Delilah. Multi-Olivier Award winning director Richard Jones returns to The Royal Opera to stage this spectacular fin-de-siècle masterpiece, not performed at Covent Garden since 2004. Elina Garanca stars as the Philistine Dalila, SeokJong Baek as the inspiring Jewish hero Samson and Antonio Pappano conducts the full forces of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. With superb singing in solos and duets of great intimacy and fervour, gorgeous music with thrilling orchestral interludes, and splendid choral numbers for the Royal Opera Chorus – this is a performance to remember.

The beautiful but icy Princess Turandot will only marry a man who can correctly answer three riddles. Those who fail are brutally beheaded. But when an unknown prince arrives, the balance of power in Turandot’s court is forever shaken, as the mysterious stranger does what no other has been able to.