The Metropolitan Opera’s Free Summer HD Festival Returns to Lincoln Center, Featuring Ten Outdoor Opera Screenings in Damrosch Park, From August 28 Through Labor Day

 

The acclaimed documentary The Opera House will be shown as a pre-festival bonus screening on Friday, August 27

 

2,500 seats will be available nightly

 

General admission opens ten minutes before each screening,

with reserved seating available via TodayTix

 

 

 

New York, NY (August 12, 2021)— The Met’s popular Summer HD Festival returns on Saturday, August 28, featuring a lineup of ten free encore presentations from the company’s popular Live in HD series, as well as a special pre-festival screening of Susan Froemke’s acclaimed documentary The Opera House. Running through September 6, the festival features unforgettable performances from many of opera’s greatest singers, including Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Flórez in Verdi’s La Traviata and Peter Mattei in Berg’s Wozzeck, both performances conducted by Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, as well as Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Verdi’s Il Trovatore, and Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena in Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment.

The festival also features an HD performance of the Met’s new production of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer, which was never seen in movie theaters on its originally scheduled HD date of March 14, 2020; two days earlier, the Met was forced to cancel the remainder of its season due to the pandemic. However, as part of regular preparations for an HD broadcast, the preceding performance of the opera on March 10 was recorded as a camera rehearsal and will be shown as part of the festival on August 31. The full Summer HD Festival dates and titles are below.

The screenings are free and open to the public, with approximately 2,500 seats set up next to the opera house in Damrosch Park. General-admission seating will open ten minutes before each presentation on a first-come-first-served basis.

Reserved seating is also available via the TodayTix lottery, by entering for a chance to win up to two free reserved seats, starting two weeks before each screening. Entries close three days before each presentation, at 12:59 PM ET. Lottery winners must arrive at least ten minutes before show time to guarantee their seats. Enter the lottery through the TodayTix app or by calling Lincoln Center Guest Services at 212.875.5456.

Screenings will go on as scheduled in the case of rain but will be canceled in the event of thunder/lightning or high wind. Canceled screenings will not be rescheduled.

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, 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.

 

SCHEDULE:

 

Friday, August 27, at 8:00PM: The Opera House

In this documentary, award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke explores the creation of the Metropolitan Opera’s storied Lincoln Center home.

 

Saturday, August 28, at 7:30PM: Verdi’s La Traviata

Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; starring Diana Damrau, Juan Diego Flórez, and Quinn Kelsey. From December 15, 2018.

 

Sunday, August 29, at 7:30PM: Verdi’s Otello

Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; starring Sonya Yoncheva, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Dimitri Pittas, Željko Lučić, and Günther Groissböck. From October 17, 2015.

 

Monday, August 30, at 7PM: Philip Glass’s Satyagraha

Conducted by Dante Anzolini; starring Rachelle Durkin, Richard Croft, Kim Josephson, and Alfred Walker. From November 19, 2011.

 

Tuesday, August 31, at 7:30PM: Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer

Conducted by Valery Gergiev; starring Anja Kampe, Mihoko Fujimura, Sergey Skorokhodov, David Portillo, Evgeny Nikitin, and Franz-Josef Selig. From March 10, 2020.

 

Wednesday, September 1, at 7:30PM: Nico Muhly’s Marnie

Conducted by Robert Spano; starring Isabel Leonard, Janis Kelly, Denyce Graves, Iestyn Davies, and Christopher Maltman. From November 10, 2018.

 

Thursday, September 2, at 7:30PM: Berg’s Wozzeck

Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; starring Elza van den Heever, Tamara Mumford, Christopher Ventris, Gerhard Siegel, Andrew Staples, Peter Mattei, and Christian Van Horn. From January 11, 2020.

 

Friday, September 3, at 7PM: Massenet’s Manon

Conducted by Fabio Luisi; starring Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczała, Paulo Szot, and David Pittsinger. From April 7, 2012.

 

Saturday, September 4, at 7PM: Mozart’s Così fan tutte

Conducted by David Robertson; starring Amanda Majeski, Kelli O’Hara, Serena Malfi, Ben Bliss, Adam Plachetka, and Christopher Maltman. From March 31, 2018.

 

Sunday, September 5, at 7:30PM: Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment

Conducted by Enrique Mazzola; starring Pretty Yende, Stephanie Blythe, Kathleen Turner, Javier Camarena, and Maurizio Muraro. From March 2, 2019.

 

Monday, September 6, at 7:30PM: Verdi’s Il Trovatore

Conducted by Marco Armiliato, starring Anna Netrebko, Dolora Zajick, Yonghoon Lee, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Stefan Kocán. From October 3, 2015.