For an opera that's had a pretty spotty performance record at the Met--Verdi's longest opera, DON CARLOS/DON CARLO, had its company premiere in 1920 then mostly disappeared until Rudolf Bing resurrected it in 1950 for the first production of his tenure as General Manager--it's looking suddenly a lot more familiar.

Last season, the company gave its first presentation of the French version (that's the one called DON CARLOS, with a final S to his first name), in the five-act version that lasted almost 5 hours.