The Metropolitan Opera's 2017 Summer HD Festival Will Offer Free Screenings of Met Performances

The Metropolitan Opera's annual Summer HD Festival, which presents free outdoor screenings of operas on Lincoln Center Plaza, will return for the ninth time this summer, with one screening each night from Saturday, August 26, to Monday September 4 (Labor Day). The series will present nine recent performances from the company's acclaimed Live in HD series of movie theater transmissions, with its production of Tristan und Isolde being shown over two evenings due to its length. As a prelude to the festival, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in association with the Met, will present Ingmar Bergman's classic film, The Magic Flute, on Friday, August 25.

The festival opens with Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer's Rigoletto, with its neon-bedecked Las Vegas set, and starring Diana Damrau, Piotr Beczala and Željko Lu?i?. Over the course of the ten night festival, many of the Met's biggest stars will be featured, including Anna Netrebko in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Plácido Domingo in Verdi's Nabucco, Nina Stemme in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Sonya Yoncheva in Verdi's La Traviata, which will be screened on Labor Day, the final evening of the festival.

Each evening of the festival, 3,000 seats will be available on the plaza on a first-come, first-served basis, as well as additional space for overflow crowds. No tickets are required, and there are no rain dates.

The Summer HD Festival is generously supported by The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust. Additional funding is provided by The Howard Gilman Foundation.

The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant from its founding sponsor, The Neubauer Family Foundation. Digital support of The Met: Live in HD is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies.