Sir Breen Terfel’s beautiful bass baritone returns to the company for the first time since 2012, starring as a goddamn naval captain sentenced to swim forever on the high seas. Valery Gergiev manages the new production of Franois Girard, whose visionary in 2013 Parsifal adopted the latest Met standard for Wagner’s stay. Thanks to John McFarlane’s extensive kits, Girard’s new production transforms the Met stage into a rich, layered table that resembles a huge oil painting. The talented German soprano Anya Campo in her Met debut is a devoted Senta whose unselfish love is what the Dutch are looking for, bassist Franz Josef Selig as her father Daland and tenor Sergey Skorokhodov as her former lover, Eric.

Director Felim McDermott tackles another of Philip Glass’s masterpieces based on the legendary Met Satyagraha production. Anthony Roth Costanzo’s star rival has the title of Pharaoh, the revolutionary ruler who transformed Ancient Egypt, with the impressive mezzosoprano JNAi Bridges in his Met debut as his wife Nefertiti. To match the hypnotic, ritualistic music of the opera, McDermott has created a retarding vision that includes a virtuoso company of acrobats and jugglers. Karen Kamenzek directs in her debut Met.

Handel’s story of intrigue and irregularity in Ancient Rome gets his first Met performance, and star mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato directs the governing, hungry for power Agrippina and Harry Biket. The production of Sir David McVicars brilliantly renews this black comedy about power abuse so far, where it must resonate strongly. The all-star cast of mezzo soprano Kate Lindsey as the son of Agrippina and future Emperor Nero, soprano Brenda Rae as the seductive Poppa, opponent Eestin Davis as the ambitious Otton officer, and bass Matthew Rose as the tired Emperor Claudius.