Elina Garanca, Anna Netrebko

Here's the complete concert that brought together four of the world's most exciting singers, performing beloved arias, duets, and quartets. Anna Netrebko and Ellna Garanca appear together for the first time on stage in this dazzling gala for a quartet of "superstars" (Badische Zeitung). "Bel canto at its most beautiful and most ravishing" (Badische Neueste Nachrichten).

The Met's belated foray into the complete Donizetti "Tudor trilogy" began inauspiciously in 2011 with a season-opening David McVicar production of ANNA BOLENA showcasing Anna Netrebko. Hobbled out of the gate by the pregnancy-necessitated withdrawal of mezzo Elīna Garanča (whose Jane Seymour had been the best thing about a recent-past production from Vienna, now on DVD), it was further undermined by an Anna whose temperament only partially compensated for a smudgy florid technique and a big lyric rather than truly dramatic voice, hoarsening toward the end of the work's two long acts. The director, too, was largely unsuccessful in his attempts to make a long and oft-static work dynamic, and costume and set designs were notably dreary. The prospect of a new MARIA STUARDA the following season helmed by the same director did not inspire great enthusiasm, but this was as much a hit as the BOLENA had been a miss, and a standout of the 2012-13 season… By Todd Kay