Screenplay
Joe Mondragon, a veteran cop who gets things done, forms an unlikely partnership with Samantha Baines. She is attached to Police Intelligence Division and feels more comfortable handling a computer than a gun. Samantha's computer skills are needed to help hack into and track two serial killers who get their victims from Internet Chat Rooms. The plan goes horribly wrong and in a fire fight between Samantha and Joe, and the two killers, Joe is killed when Samantha is unable to make herself fire her weapon at the two serial killers. Samantha feels guilty and responsible. With the help of her new friend Mimi, and the Head of Homicide, Samantha reinvents herself and avenges Joe after a relentless chase of the killers.
Egisto
It's hard to imagine confirmed Straussians not wanting this starry Metropolitan Opera performance of Elektra. Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannstahl, transformed Sophocles' take on Homer's tale into a harrowing opera noir. Elektra lives for one reason, to kill her mother, Klytämnestra, and her stepfather, Aegisth, the murderers of her father, Agamemnon. In contrast to Elektra's vengeful obsession, her sister Chrysothemis desires to get on with life. When their long-missing brother, Orestes, returns to do the deed, Elektra celebrates with a dance of death and, her sole purpose in life fulfilled, dies. Strauss joined the hermetic plot to music of the utmost opulence, violent and yearning by turns, evoking the cardinal principles of Greek tragedy - pity and terror.
A Messenger
This was one of the most emotional evenings in Met history—the night Leontyne Price bid farewell to opera. Aida is the role that inspired audiences around the world to acclaim her as the greatest Verdi soprano of her time. And this telecast shows why: the famous soaring phrases that seemed to never end, the shimmering top to her lustrous voice, undimmed by the years. But most of all, there is the ennobling heart and soul Price lavished on every performance—captured here forever. With James Levine conducting the Met orchestra, chorus, and ballet.
Captain
Live from the Metropolitan Opera: Simon Boccanegra
Walther von der Vogelweide
As renowned for its harmonious overture as for its romantic storybook characters, this three-act masterwork features some of the composer’s most groundbreaking and unforgettable music, as well as a theme the young Wagner would revisit again and again later in his career—the redemptive and transcendent power of a woman’s love. The enchanting plot harks back to medieval history: Wolfram is a lovesick troubadour who desires the virtuous Elisabeth. She, however, has eyes for another: the rebellious knight Tannhäuser, who in turn cannot get over an overwhelming sensual experience in the realm of the goddess Venus, and is banished for singing her praises at court. Only saintly Elisabeth’s death can atone for his misdeeds.
The Metropolitan Opera live production of Richard Strauss's opera Elektra on February 16, 1980
