In an alternative timeline, the Metropolitan Opera would have concluded its 2019–2020 season at its Lincoln Center home May 9. Instead, the New York City institution shut its doors in March, portending an early end to its programming and furloughs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Its digital Nightly Met Stream series, however, continues, even past its scheduled season.
The ninth week of programming offers recent and classic broadcasts of Met productions, including two memorable title performances from the ’80s: Jessye Norman in Ariadne auf Naxos (opposite Kathleen Battle) and Joan Sutherland in Lucia di Laammermoor. More contemporary stagings on the lineup include Jonas Kaufmann in Werther and Michael Mayer’s Las Vegas-set Rigoletto.
Also continuing is the Met’s Free Student Streams series, with Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore available 5 PM Wednesday through 5 PM Friday. Additional related events will take place throughout the week, including an Educator Showcase via Zoom, virtual office hours via Facebook Live, and an artist chat pre-performance. For more information, visit MetOpera.org.
Each title will be available for free from the company’s homepage starting at 7:30 PM and will remain there for the following 23 hours. All of the performances are among the recordings cataloged in the Met’s On Demand subscription service.
See below for the full lineup for the week of May 11.
May 11: Massenet’s Werther
Conducted by Alain Altinoglu, starring Lisette Oropesa, Sophie Koch, Jonas Kaufmann, and David Bižić. (Originally broadcast March 15, 2014.)
May 12: Thomas Adès’s The Tempest
Conducted by Thomas Adès, starring Audrey Luna, Isabel Leonard, Alek Shrader, Alan Oke, and Simon Keenlyside. (Originally broadcast November 10, 2012.)
May 13: R. Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos
Conducted by James Levine, starring Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, and Tatiana Troyanos. (Originally broadcast March 12, 1988.)
May 14: Britten’s Peter Grimes
Conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles, starring Patricia Racette, Anthony Dean Griffey, and Anthony Michaels-Moore. (Originally broadcast March 15, 2008.)
May 15: Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor
Conducted by Richard Bonynge, starring Joan Sutherland, Alfredo Kraus, Pablo Elvira, and Paul Plishka. (Originally broadcast November 13, 1982.)
May 16: Verdi’s Rigoletto
Conducted by Michele Mariotti, starring Diana Damrau, Oksana Volkova, Piotr Beczała, and Željko Lučić. (Originally broadcast February 16, 2013.)
May 17: Verdi’s Nabucco
Conducted by James Levine, starring Liudmyla Monastyrska, Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas, Plácido Domingo, and Dmitry Belosselskiy. (Originally broadcast January 7, 2017.)