Metropolitan Opera launches free live streams following coronavirus closure

Like many venues, New York City's Metropolitan Opera canceled upcoming performances due to concerns over the coronavirus.

However, the opera house is making up for it by offering a series of encore presentations streamed online for free.

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The Met Opera will live stream “Live in HD,” an award-winning series of cinema transmissions through March 31, which is the duration of the closure.

“We’d like to provide some grand opera solace to opera lovers in these extraordinarily difficult times,” said Met General Manager Peter Gelb in a press release. “Every night, we’ll be offering a different complete operatic gem from our collection of HD presentations from the past 14 years.”

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“Nightly Met Opera Streams” began March 16 with Bizet’s “Carmen,” originally performned in January 2010. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducted the performance, which starred Elīna Garanča and Roberto Alagna.

The third week of streams will begin with Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, which was conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin in May 2019 and starred Isabel Leonard, Adrianne Pieczonka, and Karita Mattila.

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Each stream will start at 7:30 p.m. on their respective days and remain active on the metopera.org homepage for 23 hours. Performances can be streamed on the Met Opera on Demand streaming service and can be viewed on all Met Opera on Demand apps.