The Met: Live in HD Enters Its Sixth Season With Largest-Ever Worldwide Distribution

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The 2011-12 season of the award-winning series kicks off Saturday, October 15, with Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, starring Anna Netrebko

The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning series of live transmissions to movie theaters around the world, has expanded its worldwide distribution to 1,600 theaters in 54 countries, the largest global audience the initiative has ever reached. The newest countries to sign on for Live in HD transmissions include Russia, Israel, China, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Slovenia, and the territory of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Last year, a record of more than 2.6 million Live in HD tickets were sold to opera lovers across the globe, effectively quadrupling the Met’s paying audience (approximately 800,000 people attend performances in the opera house in a Met season).

The sixth season of live transmissions begins October 15 with the Met premiere production of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, featuring Anna Netrebko in the title role. She stars in the first transmission to be shown in her native country, joined by Russian colleagues Ekaterina Gubanova as Jane Seymour and Ildar Abdrazakov as Enrico (Henry VIII).

The opera, directed by David McVicar and conducted by Marco Armiliato, is based on the final, tragic days of Anne Boleyn and has been a dramatic and vocal showcase for some of the greatest sopranos in operatic history. In addition to Ms. Netrebko, the 2011-12 Live in HD season features many of the opera world’s most prominent stars, including Stephanie Blythe, David Daniels, Natalie Dessay, Joyce DiDonato, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Jonas Kaufmann, Mariusz Kwiecien, René Pape, Marina Poplavskaya, Bryn Terfel, and Deborah Voigt.

The 2011-12 Live in HD season features 11 transmissions, which include a Met premiere, a world premiere, three new productions of repertory favorites, and the final two installments of a new Ring cycle. All 11 high-definition productions will be shown live worldwide on Saturdays. Most operas begin at 12:55 p.m EST, with some operas beginning earlier in the afternoon; exact starting times appear on the schedule below. The majority of encore presentations in the United States will be shown on Wednesdays, 18 days after the live exhibition. For complete information on locations and tickets, visit www.metopera.org/hdlive.

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