The Live in HD season begins October 13 with a new production of Donizetti’s comic gem L’Elisir d’Amore, directed by Bartlett Sher and conducted by Maurizio Benini. Anna Netrebko makes her Met role debut as the beautiful landowner Adina, with Matthew Polenzani as Nemorino, the simple peasant who falls in love with her. Mariusz Kwiecien sings Adina’s arrogant fiancé, Sergeant Belcore, and Ambrogio Maestri will sing the role of the magic potion-peddling Doctor Dulcamara. “L’Elisir d’Amore is kind of two operas at the same time,” Sher says. “It’s an opera that’s a great entertainment, and it’s an opera that has something else happening underneath. It’s informed by when in Italian history it was written—you can see the early stirrings of a cry for independence.”