Ted Huffman

Mozart’s allegorical fairy tale has charmed audiences and inspired artists, for more than 200 years. A few weeks before this telecast, the Met unveiled a new production of the opera featuring the colorful designs of acclaimed artist David Hockney. His bold colors and vivid images enchanted audiences and seemed to inspire the striking cast, led by James Levine’s affectionate conducting. Francisco Araiza is the young prince Tamino, who finds himself in a strange land, forced to undergo mysterious tests so he can rescue, then marry, the woman he loves, Pamina, played by Kathleen Battle. Kurt Moll is the compassionate Sarastro and Luciana Serra is the Queen of the Night.

During Marian Anderson's historic concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, a white man and a black woman fall in love. During the turbulent half-century that follows, they try to protect their three musically gifted children from prejudices they themselves have suffered. Belgian avant-garde jazz pianist and composer Kris Defoort’s new opera is a fascinating symbiosis between jazz and classical music deeply rooted in the now. Inspired by Richard Powers' great American novel, The Time of Our Singing tells the story of a mixed-race family against the backdrop of racial segregation in the USA. In the world premiere at La Monnaie, Ted Hoffman's production lets official history and intimate stories collide to explore issues of identity, race and art.

How to take the place of the empress of Rome? Poppaea, a courtesan and mistress of Emperor Nero, removes every obstacle that stands between her and the throne: she leaves her lover, Otho, the philosopher Seneca commits suicide, Empress Octavia is banished, and finally she achieves her goal, marrying Nero. Through Monteverdi's music, this triumph of immorality is elevated into a hymn to the power of desire. Monteverdi's last opera is also the first masterpiece of the genre, extraordinarily and enduringly modern. Here, it is filmed at the Opera Royal de Versailles, with a young and committed cast, guided through a mafia-baroque world by director Ted Huffman and the sensational Leonardo Garcia Alarcon!