Around the world at the Opera
This new initiative is intended to create live performance opportunities for our artists and our audiences at a time when they both sorely need it
From summer to fall, opera’s greatest and biggest stars will perform in a groundbreaking unique pay-per-view recitals in picturesque European and American locations, each live via satellite and shot with multiple cameras.
In a Zoom press conference with most of the participating artists, Met’s general manager Peter Gelb explained the parameters of the series of live events, which will be shot with multiple cameras linked by satellite to a control room in New York City, where host soprano Christine Goerke will be situated. Gary Halvorson, Met’s award-winning director of the company’s Live in HD cinema transmissions, will direct each of the programs.
“This new initiative is intended to create live performance opportunities for our artists and our audiences at a time when they both sorely need it. Although some concert activity is beginning to take place once again in some parts of the world, this is a chance for opera fans to experience their favorite stars in real-time, since it’s going to be a long time before artists and audiences are fully mobile again,” Gelb said.
The cameras will be free to fully explore the interiors of the venues, capturing the artists’ performances as well as the architectural details of their unusual locations. Entrances and exits will be dispensed with and in order to give the singers breaks from their strenuous groups of arias, the camera will cut back to New York and to Goerke who will introduce brief documentary segments that will fill these pauses.
The Metropolitan Opera House may remain dark because of the ongoing health crisis, but the Met stars live in concert will allow audiences to experience phenomenal and special solo and duo performances which is a follow-up of the virtual At-Home Gala performance on 25 April when Met artists, chorus and orchestra performed and live-streamed from their homes around the globe.
Gelb noted that the performances are being set in picturesque locations, without audiences present in the venue. “We think it will be more satisfying for the performers, as well as the thousands who will be watching at home, not to experience these performances through the eyes of a socially distanced audience.”
Locations include a terrace in Èze, France, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, a castle in Oslo, palaces in Vienna and Malta, a historic mansion in Washington,
D.C. and churches in Barcelona and Wales.
Opening the weekend concert live series on 18 July from the ornate Polling Abbey in the Bavarian countryside outside Munich, Germany is tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who will sing an array of classic arias. Built-in the 1770s with soaring ceilings and breathtaking frescoes, the grand Baroque interior of the historic venue is a perfect setting for his performance.
Selections will include “Nessun dorma” (Turandot), “E lucevan le stelle” (Tosca), “Ah! lève-toi, soleil”
(Roméo et Juliette), “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée” (Carmen), “È la solita storia” (L’Arlesiana), and “Un dì all’azzurro spazio” (Andrea Chenier), among others. Kaufmann will be accompanied by Helmut Deutsch on piano.
All live summer and fall concerts at 1 p.m. ET also include Renée Fleming from the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, D.C.
(1 August), Roberto
Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak from the Château de la Chèvre d’Or in Èze, France (16 August), Lise Davidsen from the Oscarshall Palace in Oslo, Norway (29 August), Joyce DiDonato from the Fundació Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona, Spain (12 September), Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczała from Barcelona, Spain (26 September), Anna Netrebko from Liechtenstein Palace in Vienna, Austria (10 October), Diana Damrau and Joseph Calleja from a castle in Malta (24 October), Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena from Zurich, Switzerland (7 November), Sonya
Yoncheva from Berlin, Germany (21 November), Bryn Terfel from a church in Wales (12 December) and Angel Blue from New York City (19 December).
On Tuesday, 14 July at 12 p.m. ET, tickets for each recital were made available for $20 on MET’s official website (metopera.org). Following the live event, all 12 performances will remain available for on-demand viewing for 12 days.
The concert series can be viewed on computers, mobile devices or home entertainment systems via Chromecast or AirPlay.
Met Stars Live in Concert is sponsored by the Neubauer Family Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and Rolex. The Metropolitan Opera is collaborating with Askonas Holt and Centre Stage Artist Management as co-producers for some of these events. In recognition of the health crisis and its impact on the Met vocal artists who are out of work, Rolex is making a contribution to METCHORUSARTISTS.
The cameras will be free to fully explore the interiors of the venues, capturing the artists’ performances as well as the architectural details of their unusual locations.