In celebration of James Levine‘s 40th anniversary at the Met, the company is releasing two massive collections of previously (mostly) unavailable material conducted by the maestro. Highlights include video performances of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride (Teresa Stratas, Nicolai Gedda, Jon Vickers, Martti Talvela), and Der Rosenkavalier (Kiri Te Kanawa, Tatiana Troyanos, Judith Blegen, Luciano Pavarotti, Kurt Moll).

The DVDs also include highlights from historic concerts in 1982 and 1983 featuring five legendary names, Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne, Tatiana Troyanos, Plácido Domingo, and Sherrill Milnes. The 11 historic performances on the 32-CD set range from early 1980s innovations like the Parade triple-bill to the world premiere of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby from 2000.

The two sets comprising “James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met” will be available on September 21.

11 Titles on 32 CDs

Berg: Lulu. Christine Schäfer, Hanna Schwarz, David Kuebler, Clifton Forbis, James Courtney; April 21, 2001

Berg: Wozzeck. José van Dam, Anja Silja, Ragnar Ulfung, Richard Cassilly, Dieter Weller; March 8, 1980

Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini. Marcello Giordani, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Kristine Jepson, Peter Coleman-Wright, John Del Carlo, Robert Lloyd; December 27, 2003

Berlioz: Les Troyens. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Deborah Voigt, Ben Heppner, Dwayne Croft, Robert Lloyd; February 22, 2003

Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande. Jeannette Pilou, Dale Duesing, Jocelyne Taillon, José van Dam, Jerome Hines; January 22, 1983

Harbison: The Great Gatsby. Jerry Hadley, Dawn Upshaw, Dwayne Croft, Susan Graham, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Mark Baker; January 1, 2000

Parade (triple bill)—Satie: Parade / Poulenc: Les Mamelles de Tirésias / Ravel: L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. Ainhoa Arteta, Danielle de Niese, Earle Patriarco, Ruth Ann Swenson, Wendy White; March 16, 2002

Schoenberg: Moses und Aron. Philip Langridge, John Tomlinson; February 20, 1999

Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress. Dawn Upshaw, Paul Groves, Samuel Ramey, Stephanie Blythe; April 19, 2003

Stravinsky (triple bill)—Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps / Le Rossignol / Oedipus Rex. William Lewis, Florence Quivar, Franz Mazura, Gianna Rolandi, Philip Creech; February 25, 1984

Wagner: Lohengrin. Ben Heppner, Deborah Voigt, Deborah Polaski, Hans-Joachim Ketelsen, Eric Halfvarson; March 21, 1998

12 Titles on 21 DVDs

Berg: Lulu. Julia Migenes, Franz Mazura, Evelyn Lear, Kenneth Riegel; December 1980

Berg: Wozzeck. Falk Struckmann, Katarina Dalayman, Wolfgang Neumann, Graham Clark, Michael Devlin; October 2001

Corigliano: The Ghosts of Versailles. Teresa Stratas, Håkan Hagegård, Marilyn Horne, Gino Quilico, Graham Clark, Renée Fleming; January 1992

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro. Carol Vaness, Kathleen Battle, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Allen, Ruggero Raimondi; December 1985

Puccini: Il Trittico. Renata Scotto, Cornell MacNeil, Vasile Moldoveanu, Betsy Norden, Jocelyne Taillon, Gabriel Baquier, Italo Tajo, Philip Creech; November 1981

Smetana: The Bartered Bride. Teresa Stratas, Nicolai Gedda, Jon Vickers, Martti Talvela; November 1978

R. Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos (Virgin Classics release). Deborah Voigt, Natalie Dessay, Susanne Mentzer, Richard Margison, Nathan Gunn; April 2003

R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier. Tatiana Troyanos, Kiri Te Kanawa, Kurt Moll, Judith Blegen, Derek Hammond-Stroud, Luciano Pavarotti; October 1982

R. Strauss: Elektra. Hildegard Behrens, Deborah Voigt, Brigitte Fassbaender, James King, Donald McIntyre; January 1994

Verdi: Don Carlo. Vasile Moldoveanu, Renata Scotto, Tatiana Troyanos, Sherril Milnes, Paul Plishka, Jerome Hines; February 1980

Weill: The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Teresa Stratas, Astrid Varnay, Richard Cassily, Ragnar Ulfung, Cornell MacNeil; November 1979

In Concert at the Met (Highlights). Plácido Domingo, Tatiana Troyanos (February 28, 1982); Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne (March 28, 1982); Plácido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes (January 30, 1983).