The Met HD in cinemas line up has been announced for 2024/25 so here’s my take on it.  The first thing to notice is that there are only eight shows.  There have been ten per season since 2012/13 and twelve before that.  This is likely a reflection of the problems with audience numbers that all North American opera companies have been having.  In the same time period the COC has cut back from 65-70 main stage performances per year to 42 and the Met’s “in house” audience problem has been well publicised.  So what does that leave us with?

October 5th 2024: Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman.  It’s a Bartlett Sher production which is a bit of a turn off, but an excellent cast with Benjamin Berheim as Hoffman and Erin Morley, Pretty Yende and Clémentine Margaine as the “ladies”.  If you aren’t familiar with Ms. Margaine you are missing out.  Christian Van Horn plays the villains.

October 19th 2024: Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded about a female fighter pilot turned drone operator.  I am unfamiliar with Tesori’s music but much more familiar with the excellent Emily D’Angelo who plays the pilot in her first big Met role.  The production is by Michael Mayer so it’s going to be projections and LED screens which does rather fit the subject matter.  Probably the most interesting show in the line up.

November 23rd 2024 Puccini’s Tosca.  It’s the McVicar production which is OK.  First time around they toned it down a bit for the cinema.  No idea if they will do that again or not.  The attraction is the cast; especially Lise Davidsen as Tosca and Quinn Kelsey as Scarpia.

January 25th 2025: Verdi’s Aida.  I’s new production by Michael Mayer but it sounds like teched up Zeffirelli.  It’s still “spectacular” mythical Ancient Egypt.  Might be worth it for Angel Blue in the title role and Yannick’s conducting.

March 15th 2025: Beethoven’s Fidelio.  It’s not my favourite opera but it’s Jürgen Flimm’s production with a contemporary setting and it has Lise Davidsen as Leonora.  The rest of the cast looks pretty good too.

April 26th. 2025:  Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.  It’s the rather traditional Richard Eyre production with an OK cast.  Personally I wouldn’t go to the cinema to see Nozze which I’ve seen more times than I can count (or countess) unless the cast was remarkable but YMMV.

May 17th 2025: Strauss’ Salome in a new Claus Guth production.  Elza van der Heever plays Salome and the rest of the cast is OK but I don’t see anything to get excited about.  Yannick conducting Strauss is a plus though.

May 31st 2025: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.  It’s another Bartlett Sher production with an OK but unexciting cast.  It’s the sort of show that brings in the tourists to the house on a quiet Wednesday but seems a bit lacking for an HD.

So, one brand new opera and two other new productions.  Of the five revivals, three: Hoffman, Fidelio and Tosca at least have good looking casts.  The other two revivals; shows that are done too often and here with routine casts, look pretty lack lustre.  Probably an attempt to tempt the unadventurous.  How excited am I?  Not very, except for Grounded.

And thanks to Steve Feiertag for reminding to do this!

ETA: A further thought on declining numbers.  It strikes me that the Met does precious little to promote the HD product; at least to what I would think is their target market… the people who go to live opera and theatre.  Now I get positively inundated by email from opera companies and theatre companies and concert promoters large and small (in my own area of course).  I get offered tickets for more shows than I can fit in my calendar.  I hear next to nothing from the Met or Cineplex about the HD product so there’s nothing to pass on.  They don’t seem to comp reviewers either.  It’s not like the cinema screenings are ruinously expensive but when one’s calendar is full of free stuff who is going to pay for something unless it is extraordinary?  So no reviews.

I suspect they leave “local” promotion to the cinemas but their publicity isn’t aimed at the people who might go to Met shows.  What’s the point of a trailer for a Met HD broadcast before the latest Marvel franchise flick?  Curious to know if there is intelligent promotion of this product elsewhere.