Canadian opera-lovers get live screenings from The Met at the cinema | Canada Voices

Fall heralds the start of colder temperatures, pumpkin-spice aromas and another opera season in auditoriums as well as cinemas.

The Met: Live in HD series, which begins its 18th consecutive season in October, features high-definition broadcasts of operas from the stage of the Lincoln Center in New York.

Started in late 2006 by then-incoming general manager Peter Gelb, the series is now broadcast in thousands of venues in more than 50 countries, with a number of major North American cinema chains beaming live opera to groups of both new and old opera lovers alike.

In Canada the series is broadcast by Cineplex, the largest cinema chain in the country. This year’s broadcasts kick off Oct. 5 with Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), a tuneful late 19th-century French work based on three short stories by writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is also the opera’s main protagonist. After Hoffmann, seven more opera broadcasts are in store for the 2024-25 season.

Along with live music, the series offers peeks behind the famous red curtain. “I love the fact that during the intervals people can get that backstage experience,” says Joshua Hopkins. The Canadian baritone, who is a regular at opera houses in Europe and North America, is set to perform on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in the spring, in a revival of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro; HD broadcast April 26, encores through May). It will be his fourth Live in HD appearance.

“It’s neat for viewers to see how we change the set or see interviews where artists are being asked candid questions after they’ve just come off the stage and are still a little starry-eyed – that humanizes them, makes them seem like real people, which we are! The audience is getting an in-depth view of the whole experience that someone sitting in the hall watching the show live doesn’t get to experience.”

Canadian mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo calls the experience of simultaneously performing live in the auditorium and as part of a Live in HD broadcast a “double performance. When I know there’s going to be a live broadcast, I am considering that duality right from the beginning of rehearsals.”

The Toronto native, who has appeared in two other Live in HD broadcasts (Cendrillon in 2022 and Dialogues des Carmélites in 2019), will be singing in Nozze (as the curious young Cherubino) but before that she’s tackling the lead in Grounded, a new opera by Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist/playwright George Brant, which opened the Met’s formal season on Sept. 23.

Grounded, which started as a stage play at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, explores modern warfare through the eyes of pilot fighter Jess. Michael Mayer’s high-tech production made its world premiere at the Kennedy Center in 2023 in a co-production between Washington National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. The Live in HD broadcast of Grounded is set for Oct. 19, with encores running through November. Met Opera music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will be on the podium.

“I want to work in that awareness of the live broadcast from day one,” says D’Angelo. “Having the small details all worked out only brings greater depth to the character, even when those details can’t be perceived by people who are sitting inside the hall.”

Hopkins’s first Live in HD appearance dates back to 2009. In 2021 he was part of the production of the new opera Eurydice by composer Matthew Aucoin and librettist Sarah Ruhl. The awareness of elements – singing and acting – can, Hopkins says, be more pronounced with live broadcasts. “I want to be in the moment as much as I can and throw myself into the character,” he explains. “But I’m also aware that we’re like Olympic athletes in terms of the things we do with our voices, so if we’re going for certain high notes, long notes, phrasing or whatever, finding the balance can sometimes be a challenge.”

Opera itself is facing the challenge of finding new audiences; it’s something D’Angelo thinks isn’t specific to one art form. “Even the film industry has had to rethink its place,” she says. “How do you get people to leave their homes? To go see a movie?” She mentions Richard Wagner’s concept of “Gesamtkunstwerk” or total work of art, which combines multiple media into a seamless whole, suggesting the use of technology is, as Hopkins puts it, “another tool in the music and technology toolkit.”

“When you have a very strong piece,” says D’Angelo, “a strong team and a strong story – it works on many different levels; there are many different ways opera can be taken in and absorbed.”