The Metal Opera is the first full-length album by Tobias Sammet's German supergroup project, Avantasia.

The album is followed by the sequel The Metal Opera Part II.

Both were written over the course of a year, starting in the last quarter of 1998, and both were produced from October 1999 to June 2000, with the works being interrupted for some weeks so Sammet could produce The Savage Poetry with his other band Edguy.

[3] The project claims that the album's title marked the first usage of the term "metal opera".

[3] According to Sammet, the album's plot is partly based on real witch trials in Fulda (his hometown) and Mainz held in the 16th and 17th centuries.