When someone you love dies, how far would you be willing to go to bring them back? The mythical Orpheus goes to hell and back, but even that isn’t enough to save his love Eurydice.

Revisiting Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice: Don’t Look Back in Ardor

Aria Code is a podcast that pulls back the curtain on some of the most famous arias in opera history, with insight from the biggest voices of our time, including Roberto Alagna, Diana Damrau, Sondra Radvanovsky, and many others. Hosted by Grammy Award-winner and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Rhiannon Giddens, Aria Code is produced in partnership with The Metropolitan Opera.

Each episode dives into one aria — a feature for a single singer — and explores how and why these brief musical moments have imprinted themselves in our collective consciousness and what it takes to stand on the Met stage and sing them.

A wealth of guests—from artists like Rufus Wainwright and Ruben Santiago-Hudson to non-musicians like Dame Judi Dench and Dr. Brooke Magnanti, author of The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl—join Rhiannon and the Met Opera’s singers to understand why these arias touch us at such a human level, well over a century after they were written. Each episode ends with the aria, uninterrupted and in full, recorded from the Met Opera stage.

Aria Code is produced in partnership with WQXR, The Metropolitan Opera and WNYC Studios.

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Gounod’s “poison aria” is so difficult, it’s often cut from productions. But it’s a pivotal moment in the opera — and a testament to Juliette’s courage.

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Carmen is perhaps the most famous heroine in all of opera: an icon of sensuality and self-determination — and a full-blown stereotype of Romani culture.

You Don't Own Me: The Myth and Magic of Bizet's Carmen

When the Voyager spacecraft set off to explore the galaxy, it carried recordings to represent the best of humanity. There was only one aria: the rage-fest from Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Revisiting Mozart’s Queen of the Night: Outrage Out of This World

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Malcolm X means many things to many people. In Anthony Davis’s opera, his humanity comes first.

Revisiting Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice: Don’t Look Back in Ardor

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