The Royal Opera House is to make two evenings of opera and ballet live from Covent Garden available to view online, following the spring-summer lockdown full-length performance streams, live-streamed socially-distanced concerts, mini-documentaries and interactive activities for children.
The event, The Royal Opera: Live in Concert, will be broadcast live on Friday 4 September at 7:30PM featuring Aigul Akhmetshina, Charles Castronovo, Gerald Finley, Lisette Oropesa, Sonya Yoncheva, and Vito Priante performing classics of the opera repertory by Bellini, Bizet, Donizetti, Dvorak, Massenet, Mozart, Puccini, Rossini and Verdi curated by the Royal Opera House’s Director of Music, Antonio Pappano.
The cast will be joined by current Jette Parker Young Artists Filipe Manu and Stephanie Wake-Edwards, 67 members of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and members of the Royal Opera Chorus.
On Friday 9 October, The Royal Ballet will perform, together with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, a dance showcase of heritage and modern highlights.
Hosted by the BBC’s Katie Derham, the opera event will be broadcast live via Vimeo, priced at £16.00 per household, and will be available for 30 days. The BBC will bring the concert to the small screen later this year and on BBC Radio 3 later in September.
Alex Beard, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, said, “although the future of the UK’s theatre industry remains more uncertain than ever, it is hugely exciting to see our stage back in action. We are still looking forward to the day we can welcome audiences back into our auditorium, but in the meantime I am delighted that, through these two concerts, we are able to bring the very best of The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet to audiences around the world.”