Metropolitan Opera To Livestream New Year’s Eve Gala Concert From Augsburg, Germany

The Metropolitan Opera will livestream a pay-per-view New Year’s Eve gala Thursday, featuring live performances by its stars Angel Blue, Javier Camarena, Matthew Polenzani and Pretty Yende singing at the Parktheater, a stunning example of neo-Baroque architecture in Augsburg, Germany.

ADVERTISEMENT

Part of the “Met Stars Live in Concert” series, the gala will be streamed live on the Met’s website at 4 p.m. EST on December 31, and then be available on demand for 14 days.

The New Year’s Eve gala program will include arias, duets and ensembles from Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment; Puccini’s La Boheme and La Rondine; and Verdi’s Il Trovatore and La Traviata, among other operas; as well as arrangements of operetta and Neapolitan songs.

A marvel of glass and cast-iron, the ornate Parktheater opened in 1886 and was designed to evoke the English pleasure gardens of the 18th and 19th centuries. The gala will be shot with multiple cameras, linked by satellite to a control room in New York, where Met soprano Christine Goerke will host. Gary Halvorson, the Met’s award-winning director of the company’s “Live in HD” cinema transmissions, will direct.

A graduate of the young artist program at LA Opera, American soprano Blue most recently starred as Bess in the Met’s production of the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, which opened the 2019–20 season.  She also is the founder of the non-profit Sylvia’s Kids Foundation, which offers scholarships to help American teenagers continue their studies once they have completed high school.

Since making her professional operatic debut at the Latvian National Theatre in Riga as Micaëla in Carmen, South African soprano Yende has been seen at nearly all of the major opera houses of the world, including Covent Garden, the Paris Opera, La Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Berlin and the Bavarian State Opera, among many others.

One of opera’s most celebrated bel canto singers, Mexican tenor Camarena made his Met debut in 2011 as Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. He regularly appears in concert and recital in cities throughout Europe and North America.

American tenor Polenzani made his debut at the Met in 1997 as Boyar Khrushchov in Boris Godunov. Since then, he has sung nearly 400 performances of 40 roles there.

New Year’s Eve gala tickets are $20 and can be purchased on the Met’s website.  Gala committee tickets, with enhanced benefits, are also available at a range of donation levels. The program will be available for on-demand viewing for 14 days following the live event. It can be viewed on a computer, mobile device or home entertainment system (via Chromecast or AirPlay).

ADVERTISEMENT

The New Year’s Eve gala is part of the Met’s ongoing fundraising campaign to support the company and protect its future.