OBSERVER: Metropolitan Opera


New York’s Metropolitan Opera celebrates 20 years of Live in HD Productions with a season of opera that will screen in cinemas around Australia from later this month.
The 20th season of The Met: Live in HD confirms the company’s position as the leading provider of alternative cinema content in the world.
The Met Opera is the only arts institution with an ongoing global series of this scale, ensuring that opera of the highest quality is available to all. Since beginning in 2006, The Met: Live in HD has sold over 33 million tickets.
Ahead of the new season of Opera, audiences can enjoy a special documentary Twenty Years of the Met in Cinemas hosted by soprano Renee Fleming and featuring highlights from the company’s collection of more than 185 onscreen performances. The documentary is now screening in cinemas.
Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte is the first of eight productions in the 2026-27 season to screen in Australian cinemas, opening on October 31.
Phelim McDermott’s production updates the setting to an amusement park inspired by Coney Island in the 1950s. From November 14 , Verdi’s take on Shakespeare’s immortal drama Macbeth, featuring Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidson will premiere in local cinemas.
The season continues in 2027 with Saint-Saëns Samson Et Dalila in February and Puccini’s La Fanciulla Del West in March, followed by one of opera’s most powerful recent works, Silent Night in April and the French masterpiece Manon in May. The 2026-27 season wraps with Verdi’s Otello in June and a revival of Wagner’s Parsifal in July.
Distributed by Sharmill Films.
Cheryl Threadgold