Autumn and winter on The Opera Platform

Building on such a successful first year of activity, with well over a million videos viewed and the International Opera Award in the category Accessibility, The Opera Platform is happy to announce its varied programme for the coming months.

The Opera Platform constructs its programme on number of criteria, offering new productions streamed, wherever possible live, from fifteen partner opera companies across Europe. Productions, whether live or pre-recorded, are chosen to closely reflect the artistic interests of each company. The choices reflect the diversity of contemporary staging of opera in Europe today and bring together artists of the finest quality. To make these shows as accessible as possible to audiences of all types, each production is subtitled in six languages and introduced by short contextual films.

The season opens with the new production by David Bösch of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, offered live from Dutch National Opera on 27 September. Ivor Bolton conducts a cast led by Stéphane Degout, Eleonora Buratto, Alex Esposito and Christiane Karg who will make her DNO début as Susanna.

Opéra de Lyon’s contribution in October offers works that are seldom shown. Schreker’s Die Gezeigneten, also directed by David Bösch, and conducted by Alejo Perez, will be available as of 7 October, alongside productions of Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna and Schoenberg’s Von Heute auf Morgen, both conducted by Bernhard Kontarsky and directed by John Fulljames.

On 21 October, Puccini’s great story of youth and love returns to The Opera Platform with Teatro Regio Torino’s La bohème, starring Irina Lungu as Mimi in a production led by Alex Ollé of La Fura dels Baus, under the baton of Music Director Gianandrea Noseda. This new staging is created to celebrate the 120^th anniversary of the world premiere of the opera in Torino in 1896.

Towards the end of the year, The Opera Platform will focus on works from Central and Eastern Europe.  Following the success of the 2015 production of Straszny dwór (which accumulated over 77.000 video views), Polish National Opera continues its focus on late 19^th century Polish repertoire. On 3 November, the Platform will stream a live performance from Warsaw of their new production of Żeleński’s Goplana, directed by Janusz Wiśniewski and conducted by Grzegorz Nowak.

A few days later, the Royal Opera House offers a live stream on 9 November of their new production of Shostakovich’s Nose directed by Barrie Kosky in his Covent Garden début and conducted by Ingo Metzmacher.

Finally to Brussels for Golden Cockerel on 23 December, which also marks a début production for Alain Altinoglu as La Monnaie’s new Music Director. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Pushkin-inspired opera is staged by Laurent Pelly, director of the year at the International Opera Awards.

Between September and December 2016 - from Amsterdam to Brussels via Lyon, Turin, Warsaw and London - The Opera Platform offers opera lovers and curious web-surfers the first part of a carefully curated European Opera Season, bringing the best of what European opera companies have to offer for the enjoyment of all; free, live and on demand.

Dates for your diary

*Available for 6 months, subtitled in 6 languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Polish) within a few days of the live relay

Still available

The Opera Platform is a project supported by Creative Europe, led by Opera Europa, the European association of opera companies and festivals gathering 164 members in 40 countries, in partnership with the Franco-German cultural broadcaster ARTE and fifteen opera companies: Austria: Wiener Staatsoper; Belgium: La Monnaie/De Munt Bruxelles; Finland: Finnish National Opera Helsinki; France: Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Opéra national de Lyon; Germany: Komische Oper Berlin, Oper Stuttgart; Italy: Teatro Regio Torino; Latvia: Latvian National Opera Riga; Netherlands: Dutch National Opera Amsterdam; Norway: Den Norske Opera og Ballett Oslo; Poland: Polish National Opera Warsaw; Spain: Teatro Real Madrid; United Kingdom: Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera.