The Royal Opera House is streaming opera and ballet for free during lockdown

London’s great stages remain closed right now, but thankfully we live in an era where high-quality streaming is a thing.

One of the first major institutions to announce a tasty digital programme was the Royal Opera House. As part of its #OurHouseToYourHouse initiative, the ROH has been releasing a major opera or ballet to stream for free every Friday at 7pm. The digital programme was launched at the end of March with a 2010 Royal Ballet production of family fave ‘Peter and the Wolf’, followed by Mozart’s classic opera ‘Così fan tutte’ and a colour-saturated Shakespearean ballet, ‘The Winter’s Tale’. #OurHouseToYourHouse was initially expected to last a month, but the ROH is continuing to share free performances from its extensive archive as the lockdown continues. If you miss them on the day they're released, you can still watch them for nearly two weeks afterward.

Let’s be honest, you’re not likely to be doing much else on a Friday night now, eh? If we’re going to be locked up, we might as well become dead cultured while we’re doing it.

Here’s what’s coming up:

July 3 - 'La Bohème' (Royal Opera)

July 10 - 'Romeo and Juliet' (Royal Ballet)

July 17 - 'Faust' (Royal Opera) 

July 24 - 'The Sleeping Beauty' (Royal Ballet)

Read about five ways you can see work on stage during lockdown.