ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The Metropolitan Opera: Live and HD (The Met: Live in HD) is an initiative of the Metropolitan Opera (Met) in New York City to broadcast some of its productions, live and HD, in cinemas from several countries around the world since 2006. Twelve operas will be presented during the 2012-13 season in more than 64 countries.

Background
The series began with the adaptation of Mozart's Enchanted Flute created by Julie Taymor. Each performance is rebroadcast once or more times. Subtitles are included in the broadcast and are in the language of the country where the opera is broadcast.

This series is also broadcast in schools in the United States. The purpose of these retransmissions is access to a wider audience for the Met.

This new idea of retransmitting operas comes from the new Met director, Peter Gelb, at the end of 2006. This concept came out at the same time as several new ideas such as the Met station on the American digital radio operator Sirius, downloads for iPods, live music from the Met on their site, the retransmission of opening evenings each year to Times Square and even free retransmissions to some schools in the United States.

These retransmissions allow more people to experience the high definition offers of the Met. Viewers are mostly people who do not have the opportunity to go to New York to attend a performance, or who are trying to find an easier and cheaper way to experience a form of art.

A few months after their transmission date, the operas were broadcast on PBS, under the title Great Performances at the Met, and were then added to the Met Player, an opera listening service created by the Met.

Global expansion
During the first season, there were broadcasts in several U.S. cinemas, 28 Cineplex theatres in Canada, seven theatres in the United Kingdom, two in Japan and one in Norway.

After its huge success, this series was broadcast on more than 100 additional screens in the United States during the second season, selling extra tickets. New arrivals are numerous, including Belgium, France, Germany and Italy.

The 2008 season saw an expansion to Austria, Australia, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and the territory of Puerto Rico.

During the 2009-10 season, operas were broadcast in more than 1200 cinemas in 43 countries. Spain, Portugal and Egypt joined the list of countries at the beginning of the 2010-11 season.

With the 2011-12 season, the number of countries broadcasting the operas rose to 54, with China, Russia, the Bahamas, Cyprus, Slovenia, the Dominican Republic, Israel, and Morocco. The Virgin Islands of the United States also began to broadcast operas for the first time