Let’s Meet At The Met!
The Metropolitan Opera was founded in 1883 in New York. When its first home on Broadway and 39th Street became too small to accommodate its grand productions, the Met relocated to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Since 1966, this has been the opera’s home in New York, equipped with the finest technical facilities. It is these facilities combined with the Met’s ever enduring spirit which has allowed it to continue to thrive even as the popularity of opera has seen rapid decline. The Met stages over 200 productions per year, welcoming over 800 000 visitors each season.
In 2006, the Metropolitan Opera introduced their Live in HD series to audiences around the world – a series of performance transmissions shown live in high definition in movie theaters around the globe. Today, this series reaches more than 2000 venues in 73 countries across six continents. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide movie theatre closures, the Met’s live shows and transmission broadcasts look likely to be halted until September 2020.
Live In HD: Lockdown Series
In response to the global pandemic crisis, the Metropolitan Opera has yet again turned to technological advances to bring their shows to the world. Since late March, they have been offering free nightly live streams of their most popular productions via their website. The streams are also available through the Met Opera on Demand apps for Apple, Amazon and Roku devices and Samsung Smart TV.
The nightly Met Opera streams kick off at 19:30 EDT, until 18:30 the following day. Seeing that Johannesburg is six hours ahead of New York, this translates to 01:30 in the morning for us! Of course, if you are still awake at that time, go right ahead. But, for those of us working from home or with young children, it may be best to get your fill of world-class opera later on in the day. Click here to watch last night’s stream before it ends!
May/June Lineup
The Met enters it’s tenth week of live online streaming from Monday, 18 May 2020. With its physical theatre facing closure for another few months, they will be continuing with the Live in HD series through May and into June 2020. Here’s what’s on the Met: Live in HD programme for the next few weeks:
Week 10
Monday, 18 May 2020
Mozart’s Idomeneo
Starring Nadine Sierra, Elza van den Heever, Alice Coote and Matthew Polenzani, conducted by James Levine. Performed on 25 March 2017.
Tuesday, 19 May 2020
Wagner’s Lohengrin
Starring Eva Marton, Leonie Rysanek, Peter Hofmann, Leif Roar and John Macurdy, conducted by James Levine. Performed on 10 January 1986.
Wednesday, 20 May 2020
Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera
Starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Kathleen Kim, Stephanie Blythe, Marcelo Álvarez and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, conducted by Fabio Luisi. Performed on 8 December 2012.
Thursday, 21 May 2020
Puccini’s Turandot
Starring Christine Goerke, Eleonora Buratto, Yusif Eyvazov and James Morris, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Performed on 12 October 2019.
Friday, 22 May 2020
Mozart’s Don Giovanni
Starring Joan Sutherland, James Morris and Gabriel Bacquier, conducted by Richard Bonynge. Performed on 16 March 1978.
Saturday, 23 May 2020
Gounod’s Faust
Starring Marina Poplavskaya, Jonas Kaufmann and René Pape, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Performed on 10 December 2011.
Sunday, 24 May 2020
Massenet’s Manon
Starring Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczała and Paulo Szot, conducted by Fabio Luisi. Performed on 7 April 2012.
Gounod’s Faust (2011)Week 11
Monday, 25 May 2020
Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust
Starring Susan Graham, Marcello Giordani and John Relyea, conducted by James Levine. Performed on 22 November 2008.
Tuesday, 26 May 2020
Verdi’s Ernani
Starring Angela Meade, Marcello Giordani, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Ferruccio Furlanetto, conducted by Marco Armiliato. Performed on 25 February 2012.
Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Puccini’s Manon Lescaut
Starring Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo and Pablo Elvira, conducted by James Levine. Performed on 29 March 1980.
Thursday, 28 May 2020
Berlioz’s Les Troyens
Starring Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Bryan Hymel and Dwayne Croft, conducted by Fabio Luisi. Performed on 5 January 2013.
Friday, 29 May 2020
Viewers’ Choice: Bellini’s La Sonnambula
Starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez, conducted by Evelino Pidò. Performed on 21 March 2009.
Saturday, 30 May 2020
Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore
Starring Pretty Yende, Matthew Polenzani, Davide Luciano and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, conducted by Domingo Hindoyan. Performed on 10 February 2018.
Sunday, 31 May 2020
Strauss’s Salome
Starring Karita Mattila, Ildikó Komlósi, Kim Begley, Joseph Kaiser and Juha Uusitalo, conducted by Patrick Summers. Performed on 11 October 2008.
Puccini’s Turandot (2019)Week 12
Monday, 1 June 2020
Bellini’s I Puritani
Starring Anna Netrebko, Eric Cutler, Franco Vassallo and John Relyea, conducted by Patrick Summers. Performed on 6 January 2007.
Tuesday, 2 June 2020
Berg’s Lulu
Starring Marlis Petersen, Susan Graham, Daniel Brenna, Paul Groves, Johan Reuter and Franz Grundheber, conducted by Lothar Koenigs. Performed on 21 November 2015.
Wednesday, 3 June 2020
Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice
Starring Danielle de Niese, Heidi Grant Murphy and Stephanie Blythe, conducted by James Levine. Performed on 24 January 2009.
Thursday, 4 June 2020
Puccini’s Tosca
Starring Shirley Verrett, Luciano Pavarotti and Cornell MacNeil, conducted by James Conlon. Performed on 19 December 1978.
Friday, 5 June 2020
Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel
Starring Audrey Luna, Amanda Echalaz, Sally Matthews, Sophie Bevan, Alice Coote, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies, Joseph Kaiser, Frédéric Antoun, David Portillo, David Adam Moore, Rod Gilfry, Kevin Burdette, Christian Van Horn and John Tomlinson, conducted by Thomas Adès. Performed on 18 November 2017.
Saturday, 6 June 2020
Verdi’s Otello
Starring Sonya Yoncheva, Aleksandrs Antonenko and Željko Lučić, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Performed on 17 October 2015.
Sunday, 7 June 2020
Massenet’s Thaïs
Starring Renée Fleming, Michael Schade and Thomas Hampson, conducted by Jesús López-Cobos. Performed on 20 December 2008.
Lohengrin (1986)For More Information
Visit the Metropolitan Opera website for more information. You can also follow their social media pages to keep up to date with the latest news:
Click here for the Met’s weekly guide to their Live in HD shows, complete with original playbills and insightful ‘behind-the-curtain’ pieces.
Looking for more live streaming events and online arts festivals? Click here!
