Free Opera Webcasts from the Met!

The bad news:  The Metropolitan Opera has closed due to the health crisis.

The good news:  The Metropolitan Opera is providing nightly encore opera performances for free on its website.  A different opera every night!  The webcasts will continue for the duration of the closure.  The performances may also be viewed on all Met Opera on Demand apps.

See the performances here every night at 7:30 PM EDT (GMT-4).

Each performance will be available for 20 hours thereafter.  The operas are from the Met’s Live in HD series.  Below is the schedule for this week.  See this Met website page for more information on the performers and conductors.

 

Monday, March 16    Bizet: Carmen

Tuesday, March 17   Puccini: La Bohème

Wednesday, March 18   Verdi: Il Trovatore

Thursday, March 19   Verdi: La Traviata

Friday, March 20   Donizetti: La Fille du Régiment

Saturday, March 21   Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor

Sunday, March 22   Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin

 

Free On-Demand Viewing of 10 Operas for the European Opera Days Celebration

The Opera Platform will present ten operas as part of the European Opera Days celebration, May 5-14, 2017.  On-demand viewing begins at midnight CET (11PM UTC; 7PM EDT).  Here’s what you can see:

Ginestera: Bomarzo from the Teatro Real Madrid

Bizet: Carmen, two performances, from the Latvian National Opera and the Opéra de Lyon

Vivaldi: Farnace from the Opéra National du Rhin Strasbourg

Janáček: Foxie! Cunning Little Vixen from La Monnaie De Munt Brussels

Rossini: Il Turco in Italia from the Bergen National Opera

Monteverdi: L’incoronazione di Poppea from Opéra de Lille

Charpentier: Médée from Theater Basel

Thordarson (Þórðarson): Ragnheiður

Mozart: The Magic Flute (set in outer space) from Den Norske Opera Oslo

Learn more about European Opera Days and the featured operas here.

See other operas currently available on The Opera Platform here.

Free Concert Webcast from the Verbier Festival

On August 6, 2016 at 7PM CEST (UTC+2) (that’s 1PM EDT in the US) Medici.tv, in conjunction with The Violin Channel, will present a free live webcast from the 2016 Verbier Festival in Switzerland.  The webcast will feature Joshua Bell, violin; George Li, piano; Emmanuel Krivine, conductor [postscript: Joshua Weilerstein was the conductor,  although Krivine was originally listed on the announcement]; and the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra.  Here’s the program:

Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto No 2 in G Minor, Op. 22

Bizet: Symphony No 1

Saint-Saens: Violin Concerto No 3 in B Minor, Op. 61.

You can access the webcast at this link.

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Image attribution: Violin and bow by Pianoplonkers (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGerman%2C_maple_Violin.JPG

Free Opera Binge Watching!

I had hoped to showcase this weekend’s livestream of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (musical direction by Kirill Petrenko, with a fine cast including Jonas Kaufmann) from the Bavarian State Opera.  However, it has been postponed.  For more information, click here.  Here is a video about the production.

Undeterred, I searched the internet for a replacement.

I have found you hours and hours of opera.  And I don’t mean The Ring cycle.

The Vienna State Opera  is currently offering for free Wagner’s Parsifal and Götterdämmerung (ok, some of The Ring; click here for details). The opera company typically offers livestreams by subscription (single, monthly, by season).  You can watch at the time of event, or slightly time shifted to accommodate your time zone.

Not a Wagner fan? Here’s what The Opera Platform website has for you right now (the assortment changes over time; click here for details):

Bell  In Parenthesis

Bizet  Carmen

Boesmans  Reigen

Debussy  Pelléas et Mélisande (not available for viewing in the US)

Puccini  Manon Lescaut

Rossini  The Barber of Seville

Tchaikovsky  Eugene Onegin

Tchaikovsky  The Queen of Spades

Verdi  Macbeth

Wagner  Parsifal

(this is the same production available at the Vienna State Opera site)

Wagner  The Valkyries

 Enjoy!

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Image attribution: C. Gallant, 2016.