New Season Of The Met: Live In HD Features Eight Exciting Productions From The Met Opera Stage To The Big Screen
The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning series of live high-definition cinema simulcasts, is currently screening exclusively at select Ster-Kinekor and Cinema Nouveau cinemas. With eight productions screening from October to mid-June 2026, the 2025-26 Live in HD season features one premiere, three new productions of much-loved operas and four revivals.
Lynne Wylie, chief marketing officer at Ster-Kinekor Theatres, says:
“With The Met: Live in HD productions screening in our cinemas, local audiences get to experience some of the world’s best-loved opera productions in a near-live situation, from The Met’s opulent stage to our big screens. The theatre-like setting enables cinemagoers to become an extension of the live production’s audience, making these world-class productions from the Met in New York accessible to anyone who enjoys and appreciates great opera.”
Peter Gelb, the Met’s Maria Manetti Shrem General Manager, said:
“What began as an experiment 18 years ago has become a staple experience for opera lovers all over the world. Our 2025–26 season in cinemas reflects how opera is changing at the Met, where we’re balancing timeless classics with accessible new work that is advancing the art form and attracting younger and more diverse audiences.”
I Puritani – Bellini (new production)
- Screening dates: 10 January (livestream at V&A Waterfront); 08 and 10 February 2026
- Duration: 3h31min
- Music by Vincenzo Bellini | Libretto by Carlo Pepoli
- Conductor: Marco Armiliato
- Cast: Elvira Walton – Lisette Oropesa; Lord Arturo Talbot – Lawrence Brownlee; Riccardo Forth – Artur Ruciński; Giorgio Walton – Christian Van Horn
For gorgeous melody, spellbinding coloratura, and virtuoso vocal fireworks, I Puritani has few equals. The first new Met production of Bellini’s final masterpiece in nearly 50 years – a striking staging by Charles Edwards, who makes his company directorial debut after many successes as a set designer – arrives in cinemas worldwide. The Met has assembled a world-beating quartet of stars, conducted by Marco Armiliato, for the demanding principal roles. Soprano Lisette Oropesa and tenor Lawrence Brownlee are Elvira and Arturo, brought together by love and torn apart by the political rifts of the English Civil War, with baritone Artur Ruciński as Riccardo, betrothed to Elvira against her will, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Elvira’s sympathetic uncle, Giorgio.
Tristan und Isolde – Wagner (new production)
- Screening dates: 05 and 07 April 2026
- Duration: 5h12min
- Music by Richard Wagner | Libretto by the composer
- Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
- Cast: Isolde – Lise Davidsen; Brangäne – Ekaterina Gubanova; Tristan – Michael Spyres; Kurwenal – Tomasz Konieczny; King Marke – Ryan Speedo Green
After years of anticipation, a truly unmissable event arrives in cinemas as the electrifying Lise Davidsen tackles one of the ultimate roles for dramatic soprano: the Irish princess Isolde in Wagner’s transcendent meditation on love and death. Heroic tenor Michael Spyres stars opposite Davidsen as the love-drunk Tristan. The momentous occasion also marks the advent of a new, Met-debut staging by Yuval Sharon – hailed by The New York Times as “the most visionary opera director of his generation” and the first American to direct an opera at the famed Wagner festival in Bayreuth, as well as Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s first time leading Tristan und Isolde at the Met. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova reprises her portrayal of Brangäne, alongside bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, who sings Kurwenal after celebrated Met appearances in Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer and Ring cycle. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green makes an important role debut as King Marke.
Eugene Onegin – Tchaikovsky (revival)
- Screening dates: 02 May (livestream at V&A Waterfront); 17 and 19 May 2026
- Duration: 4h05min
- Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | Libretto by the composer and Konstantin Stepanovich Shilovsky
- Conductor: Timur Zangiev*
- Cast: Tatiana – Asmik Grigorian; Olga – Maria Barakova; Filippyevna – Stephanie Blythe; Lenski – Stanislas de Barbeyrac; Eugene Onegin – Igor Golovatenko; Prince Gremin – Alexander Tsymbalyuk
Following her acclaimed 2024 company debut in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, soprano Asmik Grigorian returns to the Met as Tatiana, the lovestruck young heroine in this ardent operatic adaptation of Pushkin, which will be transmitted live from the Metropolitan Opera stage to cinemas worldwide on 02 May, including at Ster-Kinekor V&A Waterfront, on 02 May. Baritone Igor Golovatenko reprises his portrayal of the urbane Onegin, who realises his affection for her all too late. The Met’s evocative production, directed by Tony Award–winner Deborah Warner, “offers a beautifully detailed reading of … Tchaikovsky’s lyrical romance” (The Telegraph).
El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego – Frank (Metropolitan Opera premiere)
- Screening dates: 30 May (livestream at V&A Waterfront); 14 and 16 June 2026
- Duration: 2h48min
- Music by Gabriela Lena Frank* | Libretto by Nilo Cruz*
- Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
- Cast: Catrina – Gabriella Reyesl; Frida – Isabel Leonard; Leonardo – Nils Wanderer; Diego – Carlos Álvarez
On 30 May, the Metropolitan Opera’s 2025–26 Live in HD season comes to a close with a live transmission (only at V&A Waterfront) of American composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s first opera, a magical-realist portrait of Mexico’s painterly power couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with libretto by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Nilo Cruz. Fashioned as a reversal of the Orpheus and Euridice myth, the story depicts Frida, sung by leading mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, leaving the underworld on the Day of the Dead and reuniting with Diego, portrayed by baritone Carlos Álvarez. The famously feuding pair briefly relive their tumultuous love, embracing both the passion and the pain before bidding the land of the living a final farewell. Music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Met-premiere staging of Frank’s opera, a “confident, richly imagined score” (The New Yorker) that “bursts with colour and fresh individuality” (Los Angeles Times). This vibrant new production, taking enthusiastic inspiration from Frida and Diego’s paintings, is directed and choreographed by Deborah Colker.
Don’t miss this world-class opera production, filmed and transmitted from the Met stage to the big screen at Cinema Nouveau and select Ster-Kinekor cinemas: Eastgate and Rosebank Nouveau in Johannesburg; Brooklyn in Tshwane; Watercrest in Hillcrest, KZN; Garden Route in George; Somerset in Somerset West; and Blue Route and V&A Waterfront (with live streams) in Cape Town. Loyalty card discounts apply, as does Ster-Kinekor’s Half-Price Tuesdays ticket price offering.
Bookings are open, with each production limited to two screenings only. Book your tickets now on the new-look SK website or download the new and improved SK App on your smartphone. For news and updates, go to Facebook or Twitter. For all queries, call Ticketline on 0861-Movies (668 437).
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