If you’ve always felt daunted by the prospect of going to the opera (all fancy clothes and expensive seats, right?) then here’s your chance to dip your toes into the classics within the comfort of your front room.
Streaming platform OperaVision has vastly expanded its free online programme in the wake of the global lockdown, and has just announced twice-weekly streams starting on April 3. This month the theme is Italy, the birthplace of opera, and its continuing influence around the world.
That means you can expect works from big dogs like Verdi and Puccini, performed by ensembles based all over the word from Parma to Beijing, as well as Mozart sung in Italian in London, Rossini in French in Pesaro and Gluck in Italian in Venice.
We’re particularly buzzed to marvel at the Armani-clad cast in Jonathan Miller’s 1995 production of Mozart and Da Ponte’s ‘Così Fan Tutte’, revived at London’s Royal Opera House in 2010, and two recent productions from Parma’s 2019 Festival Verdi, available online for the first time: ‘I Due Foscari’, starring baritone Vladimir Stoyanov as the Doge of Venice, and ‘Nabucco’, led by Mongolian baritone Enkhbatyn Amartuvshin.
Ready to get emosh? Crack open that dusty champers, we say, and settle in for some seriously classy melodrama.
For the full streaming line-up, click here.
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