The Met will be screening recent productions of operas for free on Lincoln Center Plaza August 24 – September 2 (photo by Chris Lee)
Lincoln Center Plaza
Broadway at 64th St.
August 24 – September 2, free, 8:00
www.metoperafamily.org
Over the last several years, the Metropolitan Opera has been expanding its reach, presenting HD screenings of its productions, both live and previously recorded, on television and in movie theaters around the country, and more recently it has instituted the Free Summer HD Festival, holding free first-come, first-served screenings outside on Lincoln Center Plaza, by the fountain. This year’s series comprises ten operas recorded between 2008 and 2013, beginning August 24 with Willy Decker’s version of Verdi’s La Traviata, featuring Natalie Dessay, Matthew Polenzani, and Dimitri Hvorostovsky, conducted by Fabio Luisi. Mary Zimmerman’s staging of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor will be shown August 25, with Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, Mariusz Kwiecien, and Ildar Abdrazakov, conducted by Marco Armiliato, followed August 26 by Robert Lepage’s take on Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, starring Audrey Luna, Isabel Leonard, Alan Oke, Alek Shrader, and Simon Keenlyside, conducted by Adès. The nightly festival continues with Renée Fleming in Verdi’s Otello, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, James Levine conducting Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, the 2013 Met premiere production of David McVicar’s version of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Netrebko in Massenet’s Manon, and the return to Sweden of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, then concluding September 2 with Luisi conducting Liudmyla Monastyrksa in Sonja Frisell’s staging of Verdi’s Aida.