The Metropolitan Opera’s Summer HD Festival returns to Lincoln Center Plaza with 11 free screenings, August 23–September 2

 

 

The operatic lineup features highlights from the 2023–24 season, including Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, starring Nadine Sierra and Benjamin Bernheim; Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, starring Lise Davidsen and Brian Jagde; Bizet’s Carmen, starring Aigul Akhmetshina, Piotr Beczała, and Angel Blue; and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, starring Asmik Grigorian and Jonathan Tetelman

 

A special Film at Lincoln Center co-presentation of Academy Award–winning film The Red Violin, by director François Girard and starring Samuel L. Jackson and Greta Scacchi, kicks off the festival on Friday, August 23

 

More than 2,500 free seats available nightly; no tickets required

 

The Metropolitan Opera’s 2024 Summer HD Festival, an annual New York tradition, returns to Lincoln Center Plaza from Friday, August 23, through Monday, September 2. With a different presentation projected onto a big screen on the façade of the opera house each night, the free festival features ten screenings from the Met’s celebrated Live in HD series, including some of this season’s critically acclaimed new productions and beloved classics—Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Bizet’s Carmen.

 

A special screening of the 1998 film The Red Violin, directed by François Girard and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Greta Scacchi, and Carlo Cecchi, opens the festival on August 23 at 8PM, co-presented with Film at Lincoln Center. The subsequent screenings feature many of today’s most renowned opera stars, including Aigul Akhmetshina, SeokJong Baek, Piotr Beczała, Angel Blue, Benjamin Bernheim, Lise Davidsen, Joyce DiDonato, Asmik Grigorian, Leah Hawkins, Soloman Howard, Brian Jagde, Will Liverman, Federica Lombardi, Peter Mattei, Ailyn Pérez, Gabriella Reyes, and Nadine Sierra.

 

For each presentation, more than 2,500 seats will be available on the plaza on a first-come, first-served basis. No tickets are required, and there are no rain dates. For more information, please visit metopera.org/HDFestival. 

 

The complete listing of operas and start times can be found below.

 

The Summer HD Festival is generously supported by The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust.

 

The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant from its founding sponsor, the Neubauer Family Foundation. Digital support of The Met: Live in HD is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The Met: Live in HD is supported by Rolex.

 

 

THE 2024 MET SUMMER HD FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

 

Friday, August 23, at 8PM

The Red Violin

Inspired by the $1.7 million sale of a Stradivarius in 1990, the film follows a mysterious

violin from its creation in 17th-century Cremona to a Montreal auction block more than three hundred years later. Along the way, the instrument traces a perilous journey around the globe and is witness to centuries of passion, heartbreak, and unrest. In bringing this sweeping tale to the big screen, director François Girard scouted locations across three continents and assembled a cast of thousands, including Carlo Cecchi, Samuel L. Jackson, Greta Scacchi, and Sylvia Chang.

 

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

The Red Violin is a co-presentation with Film at Lincoln Center.

 

 

Saturday, August 24, at 7:30PM

Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette

 

Two singers at the height of their powers—soprano Nadine Sierra and tenor Benjamin Bernheim—come together as the star-crossed lovers in Gounod’s Shakespeare adaptation, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct one of the repertoire’s most romantic scores. Bartlett Sher’s staging also features baritone Will Liverman and tenor Frederick Ballentine as the archrivals Mercutio and Tybalt, mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as the mischievous pageboy Stéphano, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Frère Laurent.

 

Original transmission: March 23, 2024

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes

 

 

Sunday, August 25, at 8PM

Verdi’s Nabucco

Ancient Babylon comes to life in a classic Met staging of biblical proportions. Baritone George Gagnidze sings the role of the imperious Babylonian king Nabucco, alongside Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska, who reprises her thrilling turn as his vengeful daughter Abigaille. Mezzo-soprano Maria Barakova and tenor SeokJong Baek, in his company debut, are Fenena and Ismaele, and bass Dmitry Belosselskiy repeats his celebrated portrayal of the high priest Zaccaria. Daniele Callegari conducts Verdi’s early masterpiece, which features the ultimate showcase for the great Met Chorus, the moving “Va, pensiero.”

 

Original transmission: January 6, 2024

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

 

 

Monday, August 26, at 8PM

Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas

Sung in Spanish and inspired by the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez, Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s 1996 opera focuses on an opera diva, Florencia Grimaldi, who returns to her native South America to perform and to search for her lost lover, who has vanished into the jungle. The Met premiere stars soprano Ailyn Pérez as Florencia in a new production by Mary Zimmerman that brings the mystical realm of the Amazon to the Met stage. The distinguished ensemble of artists portraying the diva’s fellow travelers on the riverboat to Manaus features Gabriella Reyes as the journalist Rosalba, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley as the ship’s captain, baritone Mattia Olivieri as his enigmatic first mate, tenor Mario Chang as the captain’s nephew Arcadio, and mezzo-soprano Nancy Fabiola Herrera and baritone Michael Chioldi as the feuding couple Paula and Alvaro, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium.

 

Original transmission: December 9, 2023

Approximate running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

 

 

Tuesday, August 27, at 8PM

Puccini’s La Rondine

Puccini’s bittersweet love story stars soprano Angel Blue as the sophisticated French courtesan Magda, opposite tenor Jonathan Tetelman in his company debut as Ruggero, an idealistic young man who offers her an alternative to her life of excess. Maestro Speranza Scappucci conducts Nicolas Joël’s Art Deco–inspired staging, which transports audiences from the heart of Parisian nightlife to a dreamy vision of the French Riviera. Soprano Emily Pogorelc and tenor Bekhzod Davronov—both in their Met debuts—complete the cast as Lisette and Prunier.

 

Original transmission: April 20, 2024

Approximate running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

 

 

Wednesday, August 28, at 7:30PM

Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking

Acclaimed director Ivo van Hove directs the company premiere of American composer Jake Heggie’s powerful work Dead Man Walking. Based on Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir about her fight for the soul of a condemned murderer, the opera matches the high drama of its subject with Heggie’s poignant music and a libretto by Tony and Emmy Award–winner Terrence McNally. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium, with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato starring as Sister Helen. The cast also features bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as the death-row inmate Joseph De Rocher, soprano Latonia Moore as Sister Rose, and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham—who sang Helen Prejean in the opera’s 2000 premiere—as De Rocher’s mother.

 

Original transmission: October 21, 2023

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes

 

 

Thursday, August 29, at 7:30PM

Mozart’s Don Giovanni

 

Tony Award–winning director Ivo van Hove made his Met debut during the 2022–23 season with this new staging of Don Giovanni, setting this tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape that explores the dark corners of the story and its characters. Nathalie Stutzmann, in her Met debut, conducts a star-studded cast led by baritone Peter Mattei as a magnetic Don Giovanni, alongside the Leporello of bass-baritone Adam Plachetka. Sopranos Federica Lombardi, Ana María Martínez, and Ying Fang are Giovanni’s conquests—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina—and tenor Ben Bliss sings Don Ottavio.

 

Original transmission: May 20, 2023

Approximate running time: 3 hours

 

 

Friday, August 30, at 7:30PM

Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X

Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking opera, which premiered in 1986, arrived at the Met during the 2023–24 season. Robert O’Hara, who was nominated for a Tony Award in 2020 for his direction of Slave Play, oversaw a new staging that imagines Malcolm as an everyman whose story transcends time and space. A cast of breakout artists take part in the operatic retelling of Malcom X’s life. Baritone Will Liverman, who triumphed in the Met premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, sings Malcolm. Soprano Leah Hawkins plays his mother, Louise, as well as his wife, Betty; mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis is his sister Ella; bass-baritone Michael Sumuel is his brother Reginald; and tenor Victor Ryan Robertson is Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Kazem Abdullah conducts the newly revised score, which provides a layered, jazz-inflected setting for the esteemed writer Thulani Davis’s libretto.

 

Original transmission: November 18, 2023

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes

 

 

Saturday, August 31, at 7:30PM

Bizet’s Carmen

In her Met debut, acclaimed English director Carrie Cracknell reinvigorates the classic story of deadly passion with a staging that moves the action to the present day, amid a band of human traffickers. Mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina leads a powerhouse quartet of stars in the touchstone role of the irresistible title character, alongside tenor Piotr Beczała as Carmen’s lover Don José, soprano Angel Blue as the devoted Micaëla, and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen as the swaggering Escamillo. Daniele Rustioni conducts Bizet’s heart-pounding score.

 

Original transmission: January 27, 2024

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes

 

 

Sunday, September 1, at 7:30PM

Verdi’s La Forza del Destino

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, with stellar soprano Lise Davidsen, following a string of recent Met triumphs, as the noble Leonora. Director Mariusz Treliński delivers the company’s first new Forza in nearly 30 years, setting the scene in a contemporary world. The cast also features tenor Brian Jagde as Don Alvaro, baritone Igor Golovatenko as Don Carlo, mezzo-soprano Judit Kutasi as Preziosilla, bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi as Fra Melitone, and bass Soloman Howard as both Leonora’s father and Padre Guardiano.

 

Original transmission: March 9, 2024

Approximate running time: 3 hours

 

 

Monday, September 2, at 8PM

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly

In her long-awaited Met debut, Asmik Grigorian tackles the demanding role of Cio-Cio-San, the trusting geisha at the heart of Puccini’s tragedy. Tenor Jonathan Tetelman is the callous American naval officer Pinkerton whose betrayal destroys her. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong is the steadfast maid Suzuki, and baritone Lucas Meachem is the American consul Sharpless. Acclaimed maestro Xian Zhang conducts Anthony Minghella’s vivid production.

 

Original transmission: May 11, 2024

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes