Film
Lucia di Lammermoor
Other titles called Lucia di Lammermoor: the 1971 film, the 1992 film, the 2003 film.
Donizetti's operatic tragedy of forbidden love and family coercion, filmed at the Met with Anna Netrebko in luminous voice. A woman torn between passion and duty spirals toward madness in one of opera's most devastating roles. For those who want opera's emotional extremes without apology—grief, rage, and beauty at maximum volume.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love opera as a filmed stage event, where big voices, costumed melodrama and a tightly wound family conflict matter more than naturalistic staging.
Skip it if you find sung-through drama tiring, since nearly every emotion arrives through long, ornamented singing and the 142-minute runtime leaves little room for quick cuts or lighter moments.
What it asks of you: Over two-plus hours, the pace is measured and the mood stays bleak and claustrophobic, with long stretches of sustained singing that reward sitting still.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
La traviata1982
Zeffirelli's ravishing film of another Verdi heroine destroyed by circumstance. Plowright's Violetta is achingly human, the sets intoxicating, and the final act will break you cleanly in half.
But Shot in soft-focus romanticism that can feel dated, and at nearly three hours it asks for patience with operatic pacing.

Carmen1984
Godard's radical film opera: raw, sexually frank, visually startling. You've never seen opera staged like this. The energy is fierce and the performances genuinely dangerous.
But Not a traditional production—if you want plush Met grandeur, this deliberately strips it away. Very 1980s in its aesthetic choices.

The Phantom of the Opera2004
Lloyd Webber's most enduring melody married to sumptuous production design. Even if you resist musical theatre, the chandelier and mirror effects still land, and Carlisle's Christine is genuinely touching.
But It's operetta, not grand opera, which means less vocal bravura and more pop melody. Some find the gothic excess overwrought.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Lucia di Lammermoor
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Crazy Heart2009
Both capture the human cost of a single, defining performance—the mad scene and Bad Blake's final songs are both moments where a flawed person gives everything they have left.
Jeff Bridges as a country singer whose voice is shot but whose music still means something. A film about artistry damaged by living, about the gap between what you were and what you've become. Devastatingly tender.
But It's a character study, not a plot, and Bridges' performance is understated. If you're expecting operatic emotion, you'll find something quieter and sadder.

More like this (7)
Falling Down1993
Joan Sutherland's final filmed role, vocally immaculate and commanding. Another Bellini tragedy of a woman choosing between duty and desire. If you loved Lucia, Norma's architecture will feel familiar but deeper.
But Filmed in a stark, grey production that doesn't seduce visually. Depends entirely on your tolerance for vocal display over theatrical spectacle.

La Boheme1988
Puccini at his most direct and moving. This Zeffirelli film balances operatic grandeur with genuine intimacy, and the final act is unbearably sad without melodrama.
But The story is simpler and more conventional than Lucia—consumption and young love rather than psychological fracture. Less dramatically extreme.

Don Giovanni1990
Mozart's masterpiece with witty, elegant staging and a genuinely seductive Don. The music is immaculate, the Don's comeuppance genuinely shocking, and it moves with surprising narrative drive.
But It's a comedy-drama hybrid, so tonal shifts might feel jarring if you're after unbroken tragedy. Also nearly three hours of Mozart recitative.
Un Ballo in Maschera1980
Verdi's intricate political tragedy with vocal fireworks throughout. The plot is wild and the music phenomenal, with some of Verdi's most inventive orchestration.
But The libretto is genuinely confusing—political intrigue and forbidden passion tangle messily. You'll need to follow subtitles closely.

Rigoletto1993
Verdi's tightest, most violent tragedy. The curse, the seduction, the disguise and death—it moves like a thriller with music woven through. A complete opera in under two hours.
But The Duke is a charming rapist and the story doesn't interrogate that—just accepts it as dramatic fuel. Uncomfortable and unapologetic.

Synecdoche, New York2008
Both are about the theatre as a space where emotion is distilled and performed, but Kaufman asks what happens when you can't tell the performance from the real thing, and whether that distinction matters.
Kaufman's labyrinth about a theatre director building a life-sized replica of New York inside a warehouse, casting and recasting the events of his own life. Formally wild, emotionally wrought, genuinely disturbing in its ambition.
But Deliberately obscure and structurally dizzying—you'll spend time confused. Not cathartic like opera; it leaves you unsettled and stuck.

A Ghost Story2017
Lucia's ghost—the mad scene where her mind fragments—becomes here the actual ghost, a presence that can watch but not touch, unable to move forward or let go.
A man dies, becomes a ghost, and watches his wife grieve while trapped under a white sheet for ninety minutes. Sounds ridiculous; it's profound and strange and genuinely eerie. Uses a simple image to ask why we haunt the people we love.
But Formal and patient to the point of confrontation. A scene of eating pie lasts five minutes. This requires you to sit with discomfort and slow time.

People
Cast
Anna NetrebkoLucia
Piotr BeczałaEdgardo
Mariusz KwiecienEnrico- Colin LeeArturo
Ildar AbdrazakovRaimondo- Michaela MartensAlisa
- Michael MyersNormanno
Marco ArmiliatoSelf - Conductor
Directing
- Gary HalvorsonDirector
- Mary ZimmermanDirector
- Mary ZimmermanStage Director
Writing
- Salvadore CammaranoWriter
Production
- Peter GelbProducer
Recommended by
The Metropolitan Opera: Maria Stuarda, Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Don Carlo, La Traviata, The Magic Flute