Free Opera Streaming Schedule #4

(Week of April 4, 2020.)

Hello. We’ve made it through another week. And tonight, at 7 PM EDT, you can stream Louisa Proske’s production of The Mother of Us All, based on the life of Susan B. Anthony, by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein, conducted by Daniela Candillari, featuring young singers from the Juilliard Opera and musicians from the New York Philharmonic. In February of this year, this site-specific production was staged at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Engelhard sculpture court. A live Q&A with the director, conductor, and lead singer Felicia Moore will follow the performance. Stream on Facebook.

Here’s the trailer:

As always, thanks to OperaWire for their comprehensive list of opera houses providing free streaming access. I haven’t been able to include every single house and performance below, due to time; if you feel I’ve missed something, you can email me at papagenaopera@gmail.com and I’ll add it to the post on the website. This weekly streaming roundup will remain completely free, but if you want to support my green tea habit, you can sign up for a paid subscription below.

TOMORROW, Saturday, April 04

• Ongoing: The free opera of the week at Beth Morrison Projects is Michael Gordon and Deborah Artman’s Acquanetta, directed by Daniel Fish:

In Acquanetta, the spirit of 1940s horror movies is turned inside out in a bravura, one-act deconstruction of the genre that explores how vision relates to identity. Acquanetta examines the ways the movie camera manipulates how we see and are seen. In soaring, sometimes comic and always indelible songs that capture the heightened drama of horror films, these vivid characters reveal their inner longings and emotional shadows in what is ultimately a haunting meditation on the meaning of identity, transformation, stereotypes and typecasting, set in the heyday of Hollywood gloss.

• Ongoing: The Opéra-Comique in Paris offers free streaming of three performances: Ercole Amante (listed in last week’s newsletter), Alcione, and Miranda.

• Ongoing: Teatro Massimo in Palermo is offering a free daily stream, but haven’t put up the program far enough in advance for me to list the daily offerings below; still, you can check out what’s available and stream via their homepage.

• Ongoing: The Finnish National Opera and Ballet has made more performances available to stream online, including The Rake’s Progress by Stravinsky, Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, and Puccini’s Tosca and La Bohème. See the full slate of offerings at Stage24.

• Ongoing: The Royal Swedish Opera offers free streaming of Short Stories II, in which three contemporary Swedish composers present three new short operas based on reality: Malin Hülphers’s Jag kommer hem, Andrea Tarrodi’s Sigrid H., and Viktor Åslund’s Value Creation. Stream Short Stories II here. Their other free offerings include Die Walküre.

• Ongoing: La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels offers free streaming of seven operas: Aida, Lucio Silla, La Gioconda, Frankenstein, Tristan und Isolde, The Tale of Tsar Saltan, and Macbeth Underworld. Available until April 19th, except Macbeth Underworld, which is available until the end of April.

• Ongoing: The Opéra National de Paris offers free streaming of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera-ballet Les Indes galantes (available until October 9th), directed by Clément Cogitore, choreographed by Bintou Dembélé, and conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón. Alas, this is geolocked to France, and I would certainly never suggest using a VPN to get around such restrictions, even a reliable and reasonably priced one.

• Ongoing: Staatsoper Stuttgart offers free streaming of John Adams’s Nixon in China. Stream here.

• At Wiener Staatsoper, Witolf Werner conducts Cinderella, a children’s opera composed by then eleven-year-old (!) Alma Deutscher, in a (German-language?) production by Birgit Kajtna, starring Bryony Dwyer as Cinderella. Performance from January 1, 2018. Stream here.

• At La Scala, Riccardo Chailly conducts Verdi’s Attila, in a production by Davide Livermore, with Ildar Abdrazakov, Saioa Hernández, Fabio Sartori, and Gianluca Buratto. Performance from 2018. Stream via RaiPlay.

• El Real in Madrid offers free streaming of Wagner’s Parsifal. Stream via MyOperaPlayer.com (register with code OperaEnCasa).

• 6:00 AM EDT: Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich offers free streaming of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore; I have been fighting through the website of BS for 20+ minutes but cannot find production/cast information. Stream via Staatsoper.TV.

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Wiener Staatsoper, Sascha Goetzel conducts Puccini’s La Bohème, in a production by Franco Zeffirelli, starring Javier Arrey, Francesca Dotto, Anita Hartig, and Jinxu Xiahou. Performance from November 21, 2016. Stream here.

• 9:00 AM EDT: At Deutsche Oper Berlin, Artur Rother conducts Beethoven’s Fidelio, in Gustav Rudolf Sellner’s production, with Christa Ludwig, Lisa Otto, James King, Josef Greindl, Walter Berry, Martin Vantin, William Dooley, Barry McDaniel, and Manfred Röhrl. Available until 9 AM April 6th. Stream via their homepage.

• 7:30 PM EDT: At the Met, Fabio Luisi conducts Verdi’s Macbeth, in Adrian Noble’s production, starring Anna Netrebko, Joseph Calleja, Željko Lučić, and René Pape. Performance from October 11, 2014. Stream here.

Sunday, April 05

• Ongoing: April 5 is the last day that Teatro dell’Opera di Roma is offering free streaming of Davide Livermore’s production of Puccini’s La Bohème, conducted by Paolo Arrivabeni, starring Serena Farnocchia, Abdellah Lasri, Julian Kim, Alessio Arduini, Carlo Cigni, and Rosa Feola. Stream here. (scroll down and click the red box that says “Guarda Il Video Completo”)

• At La Scala, Riccardo Chailly conducts Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, in a production by Robert Carsen, with Barbara Haveman, Roberto Aronica, Claudio Sgura, and Carlo Bosi. Performance from 2016. Stream via RaiPlay.

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, Daniel Barenboim conducts Mozart’s Così fan tutte, in Dorris Dörrie’s production, starring Dorothea Röschmann, Katharina Kammerloher, Daniela Bruera, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Werner Güra, and Roman Trekel. Stream here. (scroll down and click the box that says “Zum Video”)

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Wiener Staatsoper, Semyon Bychkov conducts Strauss’s Elektra, in a production by Uwe Eric Laufenberg, starring Christine Goerke, Waltraud Meier, Michael Volle, Norbert Ernst, and Simone Schneider. Performance from February 15, 2020. Stream here.

• 12:00 PM EDT: The Opernhaus Zürich offers free streaming of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, directed and choreographed by Christian Spuck, conducted by Fabio Luisi, starring Krassimira Stoyanova, Veronica Simeoni, Francesco Meli, and Georg Zeppenfeld. Available through the 11th. Stream here.

• 3:00 PM EDT: Teatro Regio di Parma continues their Verdi Festival with Ernani, directed by Pier’Alli, conducted by Antonello Allemandi, starring Marco Berti, Carlo Guelfi, Giacomo Prestia, and Susan Neves. Stream here.

• 7:30 PM EDT: At the Met, Carlo Rizzi conducts Bellini’s Norma, in David McVicar’s production, starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Joyce DiDonato, Joseph Calleja, and Matthew Rose. Performance from October 7, 2017. Stream here.

Monday, April 06

• At La Scala, Riccardo Chailly conducts Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco, in a production by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, with Anna Netrebko, Francesco Meli, Carlos Álvarez, and Dmitry Belosselskiy. Performance from 2015. Stream via RaiPlay.

• At the Opéra National de Paris, Carlo Montanaro conducts Rossini’s Barber of Seville (not sure if this is in Italian or French translation), in an Almodóvar-inspired production by Damiano Michieletto. Stream here.

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, Daniel Barenboim conducts Wagner’s Tannhäuser, in Sasha Waltz’s production, starring Peter Seiffert, Ann Petersen, Marina Prudenskaya, Peter Mattei, and René Pape. Stream here. (scroll down and click the box that says “Zum Video”)

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Wiener Staatsoper, Simone Young conducts Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in a production by Irina Brook, starring Théo Touvet, Erin Morley, and Lawrence Zazzo. Performance from October 2, 2019. Stream here.

• 9:00 AM EDT: At Deutsche Oper Berlin, Lorin Maazel conducts Cimarosa’s Die Heimliche Ehe (Il Matrimonio Segreto in German), in Gustav Rudolf Sellner’s production, with Erika Köth, Patricia Johnson, Lisa Otto; Josef Greindl, Donald Grobe, and Barry McDaniel. Available until 9 AM April 8th. Stream via their homepage.

• 12:00 PM EDT: On Site Opera is streaming The Secret Gardener, their 2017 English-language adaptation of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, a site-specific co-production with The Atlanta Opera, originally staged at the Westside Community Garden. To be followed by a livestreamed Q&A with Eric Einhorn, the show’s stage director and the General and Artistic Director of the company. Stream via their Facebook page.

• 7:30 PM EDT: At the Met, Nicola Luisotti conducts Verdi’s Aida, in Sonja Frisell’s production, starring Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Quinn Kelsey, Dmitry Belosselskiy, and Ryan Speedo Green. Performance from October 6, 2018. Stream here.

Tuesday, April 07

• At La Scala, Diego Fasolis conducts Mozart’s Giovanna d’Arco, in a production by Frederic Wake-Walker, with Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Anett Fritsch, Bernard Richter, Giulia Semenzato, and Mattia Olivieri. Performance from 2018. Stream via RaiPlay.

• At Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Stefano Montanari conducts Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims, in Damiano Michieletto’s production. Stream here. (scroll down and click the red box that says “Guarda Il Video Completo”)

• El Real in Madrid offers free streaming of The Barber of Seville (not sure what language). Stream via MyOperaPlayer.com (register with code OperaEnCasa).

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Wiener Staatsoper, Tomáš Netopil conducts Janáček’s Das Schlaue Füchslein (in German), in a production by Otto Schenk, starring Chen Reiss, Hyuna Ko, and Roman Trekel. Performance from April 11, 2016. Stream here.

• 1:00 PM EDT: The Rossini Opera Festival offers free streaming of Graham Vick’s production of Guillaume Tell (sung in French), conducted by Michele Mariotti, with Nicola Alaimo in the title role. Stream via OperaVision.

• 3:00 PM EDT: Teatro Regio di Parma continues their Verdi Festival with Graham Vick’s staging of Stiffelio, conducted by Guillermo Garcia Calvo, starring Luciano Ganci, Maria Katzarava, Francesco Landolfi, and Giovanni Sala. Stream here.

• 7:30 PM EDT: At the Met, Nicola Luisotti conducts Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, in Giancarlo Del Monaco’s production, starring Deborah Voigt, Marcello Giordani, and Lucio Gallo. Performance from January 8, 2011. Stream here.

Wednesday, April 08

• At La Scala, Daniele Gatti conducts Verdi’s La Traviata, in a production by Dmitri Tcherniakov, with Diana Damrau, Piotr Beczala, Zeljko Lucic, and Mara Zampieri. Performance from 2013. Stream via RaiPlay.

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Wiener Staatsoper, William Christie conducts Handel’s Ariodante, in a production by David McVicar, starring Wilhelm Schwinghammer, Rainer Trost, Christophe Dumaux, Hila Fahima, Chen Reiss, Sarah Connolly, Benedikt Kobel. Performance from March 3, 2018. Stream here.

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, Daniel Barenboim conducts Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production, starring Andreas Schager, Anja Kampe, Ekaterina Gubanova, Stephen Milling, and Boaz Daniel. Stream here. (scroll down and click the box that says “Zum Video”)

• 9:00 AM EDT: At Deutsche Oper Berlin, Friedemann Layer conducts Aribert Reimann’s Die Gespenstersonate, in Heinz Lukas-Kindermann’s production, with Martha Mödl, Gudrun Sieber; Hans Günther Nöcker, David Knutson, Horst Hiestermann, Donald Grobe, and William Dooley. Available until 9 AM April 10th. Stream via their homepage.

• 10:00 AM EDT: The Opéra-Comique in Paris offers free streaming of two productions that they claim are suitable for (French-speaking?) children aged 6 and up, Le Mystère de l’écureuil bleu and La Princesse légère.

• 7:00 PM EDT: HERE Arts Center in Lower Manhattan offers free streaming of Paul Pinto’s Thomas Paine in Violence, directed by Rick Burkhardt, with Joan La Barbara, Christian Luu, Andrew Mayer, Paul Pinto, Eddie Rodriguez Jr., Mélanie Genin, Andrew Livingston, Pat Muchmore, Erin Rogers, Kathryn Sloat, and Jeffrey Young. Stream via their Facebook page.

• 7:30 PM EDT: At the Met, James Levine conducts Verdi’s Falstaff, in Robert Carsen’s production, starring Lisette Oropesa, Angela Meade, Stephanie Blythe, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Paolo Fanale, Ambrogio Maestri, and Franco Vassallo. Performance from December 14, 2013. Stream here.

Thursday, April 09

• At La Scala, Riccardo Chailly conducts Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, in a production by Alvis Hermanis, with Maria José Siri, Bryan Hymel, Carlos Álvarez, and Annalisa Stroppa. Performance from 2016. Stream via RaiPlay.

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Wiener Staatsoper, Adam Fischer conducts Wagner’s Parsifal, in a production by Christine Mielitz, starring Michael Volle, Stephen Milling, Johan Botha, Boaz Daniel, Angela Denoke, and Ryan Speedo Green. Performance from April 5, 2015. Stream here.

• 3:00 PM EDT: Teatro Regio di Parma concludes their Verdi Festival with Cesare Lievi’s staging of Don Carlo, conducted by Daniel Oren, starring Michele Pertusi, José Bros as Don Carlo, Vladimir Stoyanov, Ievgen Orlov, Serena Farnocchia, and Marianne Cornetti. Stream here.

• 7:30 PM EDT: At the Met, Daniele Gatti conducts Wagner’s Parsifal, in François Girard’s production, starring Katarina Dalayman, Jonas Kaufmann, Peter Mattei, Evgeny Nikitin, and René Pape. Performance from March 2, 2013. Stream here.

Friday, April 10

• At La Scala, Nicola Luisotti conducts Verdi’s Nabucco, in a production by Daniele Abbado, with Leo Nucci, Liudmyla Monastyrska, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Vitalij Kowaljow, and Veronica Simeoni. Performance from 2013. Stream via RaiPlay.

• 7:00 AM EDT: At Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, Daniel Barenboim conducts Wagner’s Parsifal, in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production, starring Andreas Schager, Anja Kampe, Wolfgang Koch, René Pape, Tómas Tómasson. Stream here. (scroll down and click the box that says “Zum Video”)

• 9:00 AM EDT: At Deutsche Oper Berlin, Ferenc Fricsay conducts Mozart’s Don Giovanni in German translation, in Carl Ebert’s production, with Elisabeth Grümmer, Pilar Lorengar, Erika Köth; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Walter Berry, Donald Grobe, Josef Greindl, and Ivan Sardi. Available until 9 AM April 12th. Stream via their homepage.

• 2:00 PM: At Covent Garden in London, the Royal Opera offers free streaming of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock, in Jonathan Miller’s 1995 production with costumes by Giorgio Armani, starring Pavol Breslik, Stéphane Degout, Thomas Allen, Maria Bengtsson, Jurgita Adamonytė, and Rebecca Evans. Stream via OperaVision.

• 7:30 PM EDT: At the Met, Gianandrea Noseda conducts Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, in Bartlett Sher’s production, starring Diana Damrau, Vittorio Grigolo, Elliot Madore, and Mikhail Petrenko. Performance from January 21, 2017. Stream here.