People are always asking me which of the upcoming Met Opera HD broadcasts they should go to, and what they’re all about. So I thought it would be helpful to list the upcoming operas with extraordinarily helpful information about each.

Check the Met’s website before setting your heart on anything. Opera’s fickle.

Live in HD – The Metropolitan Opera’s 2012/13 Season:

Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore–New Production
October 13, 2012
Nemorino buys a potion from a quack doctor, thinking that when he drinks it he will be able to talk to Adina and she will fall in love with him. He ends up drunk, but lucky for him, he’s adorable when drunk. It all works out. The end.

Verdi’s Otello
October 27, 2012
In which Otello seems smart but gets played like a … like a… like a tenor in a Shakespearean opera by Verdi. (You don’t get more played than that.)

Adès’s The Tempest—Met Premiere
November 10, 2012
Simon Keenlyside is Prospero and is dreamy. The end. (Okay yes, it is also directed by Robert LePage, who did the Met’s new Ring cycle. Let’s face it, if Robert LePage directed The True Story of Mary and Her Little Lamb, I’d go see it.)

Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito
December 1, 2012
In which Titus’ fiancee and his friend plot to kill him. Titus, in turn, clemenzas them. It’s gripping.

Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera—New Production
December 8, 2012
If you laugh off a fortune-teller’s prophesy of your own doom, stay away from masked balls. Especially if you find yourself in an opera.

Verdi’s Aida
December 15, 2012
Princess wars! An Ethiopian princess and an Egyptian princess duke it out over our hero Radamès. One of them wins – if by “wins” you mean “dies.”

Berlioz’s Les Troyens
January 5, 2013
With approximately 52k square feet of stage (if you count the side and rear stages), the Met could probably stage the actual Trojan War. This is close.

Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda—Met Premiere
January 19, 2013
Mary Queen of Scots is doomed, doomed, doomed, but she gets to spend her final hours in an opera directed by David McVicar so at least she’ll go out in style.

Verdi’s Rigoletto– New Production
February 16, 2013
It’s like the regular Rigoletto, but set in Las Vegas circa 1960.

Wagner’s Parsifal–New Production
March 2, 2013
It wouldn’t be a Wagnerian opera without Knights of the Holy Grail, a biblical spear, a bunch of curses, a magical villain, some prophesies and a dashing hero.

Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini
March 16, 2013, 12 pm ET
It’s inspired by Dante’s Inferno, which is funny since most of my friends equate opera with one of the rings of hell.

Handel’s Giulio Cesare—New Production
April 27, 2013
Handel has a thing for casting the roles of people like Julius Caesar and Nero as countertenors. Hilarious. Have you ever heard a countertenor? You’ll fall off your chair the first time he opens his mouth.