HD festival gives opera lovers the chance to catch free screenings of recent Met performances
Lincoln Center, Josie Robertson Plaza
Columbus Ave. at 63rd St.
August 29 – September 5, free, starting time between 7:15 and 8:30
212-769-7028
www.metoperafamily.org
Hurricane Irene might have forced the cancellation of the first two nights of the Met’s Summer HD Festival, but the fat lady has not sung quite yet. Every night from August 29 through September 5, the Metropolitan Opera Guild will be presenting a free screening by the fountain in Josie Robertson Plaza of a previous Met performance, each one preceded at 3:00, 4:00, or 6:00 by an indoor ticketed lecture ($8-$12) given by a member of the Community Programs staff. (Many of these talks are already sold out, so be sure to get your tickets in advance.) Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra were stormed out, so the festival gets under way Monday night, August 29, at 8:30 with Susan Graham and Plácido Domingo in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, recorded live this past February. On August 30, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna star in Puccini’s La Rondine (8:00) from January 2009, while August 30 features a February 2011 performance of John Adams’s Nixon in China (7:45), a collaboration with Peter Sellars. On September 1, Elīna Garanča and Alagna appear in Bizet’s Carmen (7:45), directed by Richard Eyre, from January 2010. The next night, Deborah Voigt gives her all in a January 2011 performance of Puccini’s La Fanciulla Del West (8:00). Stephen Wadsworth’s new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, from October 2010 with René Pape, will be shown on September 3 (7:15), with Natalie Dessay in Mary Zimmerman’s version of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (8:00), from March 2011, screening on September 4. The series concludes on Labor Day at 7:15 with Verdi’s Don Carlo, directed by Nicholas Hytner, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and starring Alagna, Marina Poplavskaya, Ferruccio Furlanetto, and Simon Keenlyside, filmed on December 11, 2010.