Met Live in HD - Verdi’s Luisa Miller

With an all-star cast:  Sonya Yoncheva in the title role, Plácido Domingo as her father Miller, Piotr Beczala as Rodolfo, Olesya Petrova as Federica, Alexander Vinogradov as Walter, and Dmitry Belosselskiy as Wurm. Maestro Bertrand de Billy conducts.
The three leads are currently in their debut run in their respective roles with Yoncheva becoming just the 16th soprano to take on the role of Luisa at the Met.  Domingo has appeared in a number of previous HD performances, including Verdi's Nabucco, and Simon Boccanegra.  Beczala has been showcased in Lucia di Lammermoor, Manon, and Iolanta, among others.
Based on the German play Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love)  by Friedrich von Schiller, the tragic plot centers on the bond between a father and his daughter as they stand together against a hostile world, and much of the dramatic and psychological acumen that would define the mature Verdi is already fully apparent in this earlier work. Both play and opera are cries against injustice, pitting virtuous country people against scheming noblemen. 
Luisa Miller (World Premiere: Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, 1849) represented a transitional moment in Giuseppe Verdi’s remarkable career. While reminiscent of the youthful vitality that had made him an international sensation, in this opera Verdi anticipates the dramaturgical discipline and sophistication of his middle period. The score itself has aspects of both the rough vitality of the composer's early work and the refinement of his middle career. 
Verdi and librettist Salvadore Cammarano originally set Luisa during the first half of the 17th century in the Tyrolean Alps. The Met’s current production by Elijah Moshinsky updates the setting to a small English village in the era of the work’s composition.