The Gilded Age

Otto Schenk's vibrant production of Richard Strauss's elegant opera brings the gilded ballrooms of 19th-century Vienna to life as it waltzes into the Metropolitan Opera House this November. A lyrical and breezy romantic comedy that follows the effervescent Arabella as she searches for love on her own terms, expect classic operatic hijinks including mistaken identity, mischief, and merriment.  Rachel Willis-Sorensen leads the cast as Arabella, alongside Louise Alder as  Zdenka, and Tomasz Konieczny as the debonair Count Mandyrka.

What Is The Story?

As her parents plot her impending marriage, the titular Arabella passes a stranger in the street and is immediately smitten. Later on, at a glittering costume ball, she meets him again, unaware that he is Mandryka, the man her father has intended for her. Meanwhile, her sister Zdenka, who has been raised as a man called "Zdenko", has been corresponding with the lovestruck Matteo under her sister's name. When Mandryka overhears Zdenko fixing an assignation between Matteo and 'Arabella,' his jealousy threatens to upend the whole scheme...