[title]
The Metropolitan Opera's suspended 2019-2020 season would be over now, but the company is continuing to entertain audiences at home with its ninth straight week of free streamed performances each night, drawn from its popular series Live in HD. The Met lineup for May 11 through May 17 includes classics by Verdi, Donizetti and Richard Strauss. (Click here for the Met lineup for May 25 through May 31.)
The operas begin streaming on the Met's website each night at 7:30pm EDT (12:30am BST) and can also be watched through the Met Opera on Demand app. Each opera remains viewable for 23 hours, until 6:30pm EDT (11:30 BST) the next day. The full schedule for Week 9 is below.
For the third week in a row, the Viewer's Choice on Friday night was recorded before the Live in HD era: the Met’s 1982 telecast of Donizetti’s Scottish tragedy Lucia di Lammermoor, starring the stupendous Australian coloratura soprano Joan Sutherland in her signature role, opposite Alfredo Kraus as Edgardo. (To vote for future Viewers’ Choice selections, visit the Met’s Facebook or Instagram page on Friday night.)
Also up this week: Massenet’s Werther, with heartthrob tenor Jonas Kaufmann as Goethe's sad poet; young British composer Thomas Adès's recent adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, directed by the visionary Robert Lepage; Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, with dueling divas Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle; and Benjamin Britten's dark fishing story Peter Grimes. The weekend features two lavish Verdi works: Michael Mayer's staging of Rigoletto, set in Rat Pack–era Las Vegas, and the massive biblical epic Nabucco.
The Met's useful thumbnail guide can help you figure out which of these works you might enjoy most. The company also provides supplementary articles and podcasts for deeper dives into the operas.
This week's Metropolitan Opera Live in HD schedule:
Monday, May 11: Massenet’s Werther
Starring Lisette Oropesa, Sophie Koch, Jonas Kaufmann and David Bižić
Tuesday, May 12: Thomas Adès’s The Tempest
Starring Audrey Luna, Isabel Leonard, Alek Shrader, Alan Oke and Simon Keenlyside
Wednesday, May 13: R. Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos
Starring Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle and Tatiana Troyanos
Thursday, May 14: Britten’s Peter Grimes
Starring Patricia Racette, Anthony Dean Griffey and Anthony Michaels-Moore
Friday, May 15: Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor
Starring Joan Sutherland, Alfredo Kraus, Pablo Elvira and Paul Plishka
Saturday, May 16: Verdi’s Rigoletto
Starring Diana Damrau, Oksana Volkova, Piotr Beczała and Željko Lučić
Sunday, May 17: Verdi’s Nabucco
Starring Liudmyla Monastyrska, Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas, Plácido Domingo, and Dmitry Belosselskiy
RECOMMENDED: Our daily round-up of the best theater, opera and dance to stream online
Ariadne auf Naxos // Photograph: Metropolitan Opera Archives
Most popular on Time Out
- Find out what your NYC building looked like in the 1940s
- You can download over 200 art books from the Guggenheim for free
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now offering a free botanical drawing course
- The best musicals now on BroadwayHD
- 10 jaw-dropping New York City apartments you can tour from your couch right now