by FilmInk Staff
New York’s Metropolitan Opera is celebrating its 20th year of Live in HD Productions with a remarkable 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 revered 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 star soprano Renee Fleming and featuring highlights from the company’s collection of more than 185 extraordinary onscreen performances. The documentary will screen in cinemas from 15 October 2026.
Mozart’s COSÌ FAN TUTTE is the first of eight productions in the 2026/27 season to screen in Australian cinemas, opening on 31 October. Phelim McDermott’s production updates the setting to an amusement park inspired by Coney Island in the 1950s. From 14 November, Verdi’s thrilling take on Shakespeare’s immortal drama MACBETH, featuring two of opera’s most loved artists 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.
MET OPERA – SEASON OVERVIEW
MOZART
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
Release date: October 31, 2026
Overflowing with gorgeous melody, Mozart’s witty romantic comedy follows two sailors who switch places to test their fiancées’ faithfulness, with hilarious results.
Hailed as “colourful, inventive” by The New York Times, Phelim McDermott’s (Satyagraha, Akhnaten, The Hours, The Enchanted Island) production updates the setting to an amusement park inspired by Coney Island in the 1950s, featuring sword swallowers, fire breathers, contortionists, and more.
CAST Federica Lombardi, Samantha Hankey, Ana María Martínez, Duke Kim, Andrey Zhilikhovsky, Gerald Finley
CONDUCTOR Nimrod David Pfeffer
DIRECTOR Phelim McDermott
Estimated runtime: 4 hours, with one intermission
VERDI
MACBETH
Release date: 14 November 2026
Verdi’s thrilling take on the immortal Shakespearean drama centres on the doomed Scottish king, haunted by the ghosts of his murderous ascent to the throne, and his power-mad wife, whose ruinous ambition damns them both.
Two of opera’s most extraordinary artists, baritone Quinn Kelsey (Tosca, Rigoletto) and Lise Davidsen (Tristan und Isolde, Fidelio, Tosca, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos) star in this new production as the scheming couple determined to seize power at any cost in a highly anticipated new production.
CAST Lise Davidsen, Freddie De Tommaso, Quinn Kelsey, Ryan Speedo Green
CONDUCTOR Yannick Nézet-Séguin
DIRECTOR Louisa Proske
Estimated runtime: 3 hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
SAMSON ET DALILA
Release date: 6 February 2027
Saint-Saëns’s operatic take on the classic biblical story follows Samson, the hero of legendary strength, and Dalila, the seductive Philistine whose beauty overpowers him.
The Met’s larger-than-life production returns, featuring a massive orchestra and chorus and some of opera’s most spellbinding tunes. Mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina (Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Carmen)and tenor Clay Hilley star as the title pair.
CAST Aigul Akhmetshina, Clay Hilley, Quinn Kelsey, Alfred Walker, Morris Robinson
CONDUCTOR Giacomo Sagripanti
DIRECTOR Darko Tresnjak
Estimated runtime: 3 hours and 55 minutes, with two intermissions
PUCCINI
LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST
Release date: 13 March 2027
Set during the California Gold Rush, Minnie, the gun-slinging tavern owner with a heart of gold, finds love in the arms of a dashing outlaw. Celebrated British director Richard Jones brings a new production of Puccini’s exhilarating drama of the Wild West to the Met, which marks the company’s first new staging of La Fanciulla del West in more than 30 years. Soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė makes an important Met debut as Minnie, starring alongside tenor SeokJong Baek as Dick Johnson.
CAST Vida Miknevičiūtė, SeokJong Baek, Christopher Maltman
CONDUCTOR Keri-Lynn Wilson
DIRECTOR Richard Jones
Estimated runtime: 3 hours and 15 minutes, with one intermission
KEVIN PUTS / LIBRETTO BY MARK CAMPBELL
SILENT NIGHT
Release date: 24 April 2027
One of the 21st century’s most powerful new works, this opera draws inspiration from the true events of the 1914 Christmas truce, when soldiers spontaneously set aside the horrors of the First World War and crossed the trenches to mingle, exchange gifts, and sing carols
with the enemy.
Composer Kevin Puts (The Hours) returns to the Met with his Pulitzer Prize–winning first opera, hailed as “an overwhelming emotive experience” (The Guardian), in an evocative staging by director James Robinson (Champion, Porgy and Bess) that takes the audience directly to the battlefields of the Western Front.
CAST Elza van den Heever, Ben Bliss, Rolando Villazón, Ben Reisinger, Mattia Olivieri, Justin Austin, Ryan McKinny, Kyle Ketelsen
CONDUCTOR Dalia Stasevska
DIRECTOR James Robinson
Estimated runtime: 3 hours, with one intermission
MASSENET
MANON
Release date: 29 May 2027
A masterpiece of the French repertoire, Massenet’s passionate drama follows the young Manon on her journey from Parisian glamour to tragic downfall.
Superstar soprano Nadine Sierra (La Sonnambula, Roméo et Juliette, La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor) takes on another alluring French heroine, the irresistible title character of Massenet’s passionate drama, in a stylish staging by director Laurent Pelly (Cendrillon).
CAST Nadine Sierra, Matthew Polenzani, Carlo Bosi, Andrzej Filończyk, Rod Gilfry, Jean Teitgen
CONDUCTOR Yves Abel
DIRECTOR Laurent Pelly
Estimated runtime: 4 hours and 25 minutes, with two intermissions
VERDI
OTELLO
Release date: 26 June 2027
Verdi’s monumental Shakespearean tragedy follows a triumphant war hero driven to destruction by jealousy and his enemies’ hatred. The ultimate Italian opera returns to cinemas with tenor Brian Jagde (La Forza del Destino) taking on the tour-de-force title role, opposite soprano Ailyn Pérez (Florencia en el Amazonas, Falstaff) as Desdemona.
CAST Ailyn Pérez, Deborah Nansteel, Brian Jagde, Piotr Buszewski, Artur Ruciński, Vitalij Kowaljow
CONDUCTOR Michele Mariotti
DIRECTOR Bartlett Sher
Estimated runtime: 3 hours and 20 minutes, with one intermission
WAGNER
PARSIFAL
Release date: 6 February 2027
Wagner’s epic final opera, set in a sacred realm of ritual and mystery, unfolds as a meditation on healing and redemption with a medieval knight’s heroic quest for the Holy Grail.
François Girard’s celebrated production, a “thoughtful and intrepid staging, full of striking imagery” (The New York Times), features tenor Piotr Beczała (Andrea Chénier, Aida, Carmen, Lohengrin, Fedora) in the title role, alongside an all-star cast.
CAST Elīna Garanča, Piotr Beczała, Peter Mattei, Ryan Speedo Green, Jongmin Park, Alfred Walker
CONDUCTOR Yannick Nézet-Séguin
DIRECTOR François Girard
Estimated runtime: 6 hours and 5 minutes, with two intermissions
