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Meet the Met at the Movies

When Peter Gelb took over as General Manager of Metropolitan Opera, he began addressing accessibility and audience expansion to current Metropolitan Opera productions. In the past, the Met has had live weekend broadcasts to radio and infrequent TV broadcasts to Public Broadcasting System (PBS) stations. Now, the Met is taking their current productions to the movie theaters in High Definition and Surround Sound

The Magic Flute was the first broadcast of “Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD,” transmitted live, in high-definition, into movie theaters in North America, Europe and Japan. Playing in approximately 150 movie theaters around the world, and in two large Kabuki theaters in Japan, the Flute broadcast is anticipated to reach a global audience of nearly 30,000 people. US theaters were booked to capacity.

Two participating movie houses are participating in New York City. Walter Reade at Lincoln Center and Regal Cinemas Stadium Theater near East 14th Street.

Future live transmissions from the Met are Bellini’s I Puritani starring Anna Netrebko (January 6), Tan Dun’s The First Emperor starring Plácido Domingo (January 13), Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin starring Renée Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky (February 24), Rossini’s The Barber of Seville starring Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato, and Peter Mattei (March 24), and Puccini’s Il Trittico featuring a stellar ensemble cast (April 28).

This is made possible by new technologies and movie theaters that have recently been outfitted with high-definition projection systems and satellite reception dishes. High definition provides a detailed image that is roughly equivalent to film.

Inside the Met, ten high-definition cameras are situated in various positions, including backstage, capturing the spectacle of the live performances and adding bonus features. Using Dolby surround-sound, the high-definition images are transmitted into the digitally equipped movie theaters via five signals routed through four satellites.
Following a thirty-day period, a recorded version of these performances will be presented on television in the U.S. by Thirteen/WNET New York’s Great Performances on PBS beginning in January 2007. Here’s yet another reason to get a widescreen HDTV, such as the Samsung 46 Inch Widescreen LCD.

Meanwhile, you can enjoy these classic Metroplitan Opera performances on DVD: