It’s Placido Domingo in your living room. Metropolitan Opera performances that have been beaming live to movie theaters around the world can come into your home in January, when the iN DEMAND cable service starts offering on-demand transmission.
Eight productions this season will be available in both HD and standard definition to cable systems choosing to offer them. (Check with your local provider.)
First up is Gounod's “Roméo et Juliette” with Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna, conducted by Domingo. It beams to theaters Saturday, Dec. 15, and hits iN DEMAND Jan. 16. Later productions include "Hansel and Gretel," Verdi's "Macbeth," Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" and "La Boheme," Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," Britten's "Peter Grimes" and Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment."
The Met doesn’t mess around when it comes to the latest delivery systems. They’ve also made a deal with the Rhapsody digital music service to make 100 operas from 1937 to 2006 available online. And they’ll be releasing two of last season’s HD shows on DVD Dec. 18: Tchaikovsky's ''Eugene Onegin'' with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Renee Fleming and Ramon Vargas, and Bellini's ''I Puritani'' with Netrebko.