Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
New York's Metropolitan Opera Orchestra dates back as an established ensemble almost to the Metropolitan Opera's founding in the 1880s. The orchestra has been led by legendary conductors of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Arturo Toscanini, George Szell, and James Levine.
New York upper-crust families launched an effort to establish a world-class opera company in 1880, and the Metropolitan Opera was launched with the 1883-1884 season. August Vianesia was the music director but was soon replaced in 1886 by Anton Seidl, a protégé of Wagner who molded the orchestra into a first-class group along German lines before departing in 1897. Other important early conductors included Alfred Hertz, Gustav Mahler (1908-1910), and Toscanini, who headed the orchestra from 1908 to 1915. Orchestra members by the 1930s earned starting salaries of some $10,000, less than the superstar singers the company engaged but more than what most other orchestras paid, and ever since then, a seat in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra has been a plum assignment for orchestral musicians.
Through the middle of the 20th century and beyond, the Metropolitan Opera was led by European-born conductors who were also prominent in the field of orchestral music, including Szell, Bruno Walter (1941-1951), Fritz Reiner, Erich Leinsdorf, and Dmitri Mitropoulos. The company pioneered operatic broadcasts on radio (from 1930) and television (from 1940), which arguably increased the prominence of the orchestra since audiences experienced no visual component; broadcasts, now including those via the Internet, have remained important to the Met's mission. Doubtless, the most significant of the orchestra's more recent conductors has been James Levine, whose career ended under a cloud but who shaped bold interpretations, many of them in part orchestrally based, for decades. Levine was succeeded by Fabio Luisi and by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director since 2018. The orchestra has issued several recordings independent of operatic productions, including one of Wagner's orchestral music and, in 2022, A Concert for Ukraine.
© James Manheim /TiVo
-
Puccini: Manon Lescaut
Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti, Giuseppe Taddei, Cecilia Bartoli, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 8 Nov 1984
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The World's Greatest Orchestras - Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 9 Jan 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart : Opera Arias
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schoenberg: Erwartung; Cabaret Songs
Jessye Norman, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 7 May 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Die Walküre
Hildegard Behrens, Jessye Norman, Gary Lakes, Kurt Moll, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Parsifal - Highlights
Jessye Norman, Plácido Domingo, James Morris, Kurt Moll, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 21 Jun 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Metropolitan Opera Gala Honoring Sir Rudolf Bing (1972)
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Best of Opera with Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 21 Jun 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Live in Tokyo 1988
Kathleen Battle, Plácido Domingo, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1989
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rossini: Extraits du Barbier de Séville (Mono Version)
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf
Classical - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Italian Dinner Music by Donizetti
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 24 Jul 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor, A. 46 (Excerpts)
Opera - Released by Archipel on 18 Dec 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), K. 492
Opera - Released by Walhall Eternity Series on 1 Oct 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bizet: Carmen (Highlights)
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1973
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Concert for Ukraine
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 21 Jul 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: The Magic Flute, K. 620
Opera - Released by Urania Records on 7 Jan 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70
Opera - Released by Andromeda on 1 Sep 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra - Great Recordings
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 26 May 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin
Opera - Released by Period Records on 1 Jan 1957
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gounod: Faust (Mono version)
Eugene Conley, Eleanor Steber, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva
Classical - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Lohengrin
Orchestra and Choir of the Metropolitan Opera
Opera - Released by Walhall Eternity Series on 11 Jun 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo