Met Opera launches free productions online for three weeks

A three-week run of free streamed productions by the Met Opera is launching online amid the coronavirus closure.
Piotr Beczala as the Duke, Oksana Volkova as Maddalena, Željko Lucic as Rigoletto and Diana Damrau as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto. Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.Piotr Beczala as the Duke, Oksana Volkova as Maddalena, Željko Lucic as Rigoletto and Diana Damrau as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto. Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.
Piotr Beczala as the Duke, Oksana Volkova as Maddalena, Željko Lucic as Rigoletto and Diana Damrau as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto. Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

In its curated theme weeks - All Verdi, 20th Century Classic and All French – the company is presenting a series of encore Live in HD presentations and classic telecasts.

All the Nightly Met Opera Streams begin at 12.30am and remain available via metopera.org for 23 hours, with the exception of Porgy and Bess, which will be available for 48 hours over the Labor Day weekend (September 4 and 5). The performances are also accessible on all Met Opera on Demand apps.

The programme is as follows:

All Verdi week

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Monday, August 24 – Verdi’s Rigoletto. Starring Diana Damrau, Oksana Volkova, Piotr Beczała, Željko Lučić, and Štefan Kocán, conducted by Michele Mariotti. From February 16, 2013.

Tuesday, August 25 – Verdi’s Il Trovatore. Starring Anna Netrebko, Dolora Zajick, Yonghoon Lee, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Štefan Kocán, conducted by Marco Armiliato. From October 3, 2015.

Wednesday, August 26 – Verdi’s Luisa Miller. Starring Sonya Yoncheva, Olesya Petrova, Piotr Beczała, Plácido Domingo, Alexander Vinogradov, and Dmitry Belosselskiy, conducted by Bertrand de Billy. From April 14, 2018.

Thursday, August 27 – Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera. Starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Kathleen Kim, Stephanie Blythe, Marcelo Álvarez, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From December 8, 2012.

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Friday, August 28 – Verdi’s La Traviata. Starring Diana Damrau, Juan Diego Flórez, and Quinn Kelsey, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. From December 15, 2018.

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Saturday, August 29 – Verdi’s Don Carlo. Starring Marina Poplavskaya, Anna Smirnova, Roberto Alagna, Simon Keenlyside, Ferruccio Furlanetto, and Eric Halfvarson, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. From December 11, 2010.

Sunday, August 30 – Verdi’s Falstaff. Starring Lisette Oropesa, Angela Meade, Stephanie Blythe, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Paolo Fanale, Ambrogio Maestri, and Franco Vassallo, conducted by James Levine. From December 14, 2013.

20th Century Classics

Monday, August 31 – R. Strauss’s Elektra. Starring Nina Stemme, Adrianne Pieczonka, Waltraud Meier, Burkhard Ulrich, and Eric Owens, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. From April 30, 2016.

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Tuesday, September 1 – Britten’s Peter Grimes. Starring Patricia Racette, Anthony Dean Griffey, and Anthony Michaels-Moore, conducted by Donald Runnicles. From March 15, 2008.

Wednesday, September 2 – John Adams’s Nixon in China. Starring Kathleen Kim, Janis Kelly, Robert Brubaker, Russell Braun, James Maddalena, and Richard Paul Fink, conducted by John Adams. From February 12, 2011.

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Thursday, September 3 – Berg’s Lulu. Starring Marlis Petersen, Susan Graham, Daniel Brenna, Paul Groves, Johan Reuter, and Franz Grundheber, conducted by Lothar Koenigs. From November 21, 2015.

Friday, September 4 and Saturday, September 5 – The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess. Starring Angel Blue, Golda Schultz, Latonia Moore, Denyce Graves, Frederick Ballentine, Eric Owens, Alfred Walker, and Donovan Singletary, conducted by David Robertson. From February 1, 2020.

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Sunday, September 6 – Thomas Adès’s The Tempest. Starring Audrey Luna, Isabel Leonard, Iestyn Davies, Alek Shrader, Alan Oke, William Burden, Toby Spence, and Simon Keenlyside, conducted by Thomas Adès. From November 10, 2012.

All French

Monday, September 7 – Massenet’s Manon. Starring Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczała, Paulo Szot, and David Pittsinger, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From April 7, 2012.

Tuesday, September 8 – Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Starring Diana Damrau, Vittorio Grigolo, Elliot Madore, and Mikhail Petrenko, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. From January 21, 2017.

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Wednesday, September 9 – Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust. Starring Susan Graham, Marcello Giordani, and John Relyea, conducted by James Levine. From November 22, 2008.

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Thursday, September 10 – Massenet’s Cendrillon. Starring Kathleen Kim, Joyce DiDonato, Alice Coote, Stephanie Blythe, and Laurent Naouri, conducted by Bertrand de Billy. From April 28, 2018.

Friday, September 11 – Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles. Starring Diana Damrau, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecień, and Nicolas Testé, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. From January 16, 2016.

Saturday, September 12 – Berlioz’s Les Troyens. Starring Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Karen Cargill, Bryan Hymel, Eric Cutler, Dwayne Croft, and Kwangchul Youn, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From January 5, 2013.

Sunday, September 13 – Massenet’s Werther. Starring Lisette Oropesa, Sophie Koch, Jonas Kaufmann, David Bižić, and Jonathan Summers, conducted by Alain Altinoglu. From March 15, 2014.