'The Met: Live in HD' Will Return to Theaters for Seventh Season

The Emmy® and Peabody award-winning "The Met: Live in HD" series returns to U.S. cinemas for a seventh season featuring 12 live operas from the Metropolitan Opera's 2012-13 season. The series opens with Donizetti's comic gem "L'Elisir d'Amore," starring Anna Netrebko, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien and Ambrogio Maestri in a new production by Bartlett Sher on Saturday, Oct. 13 at 12:55 p.m. ET. Each live performance, broadcast through National CineMedia's (NCM®) exclusive Digital Broadcast Network, will take place on a Saturday, with evening pre-recorded encore presentations taking place the third* Wednesday after each live performance.

Tickets are available at participating cinema box offices and online at www.FathomEvents.com. For a complete list of cinema locations and schedule, please visit the website (cinemas and participants are subject to change). Ticket prices vary by location.

"In addition to bringing grand opera directly from our stage into communities across the nation and around the world, our HD programs energize our performers, who know that a sizeable percentage of the global population of opera fans are watching and listening to them," said Peter Gelb, the Met's General Manager.

Presented by The Metropolitan Opera and NCM Fathom Events, NCM's entertainment and events division, the live transmissions of the "The Met: Live in HD" 2012-13 season will be broadcast to 167 U.S. markets in more than 660 select cinemas (the series is also shown in 100 additional independent venues nationwide). The season features Met premieres of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" and Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda;" five new productions including the aforementioned "L'Elisir d'Amore," "Un Ballo in Maschera," "Rigoletto," "Parsifal" and "Giulio Cesare." Other titles in the seventh season of "The Met: Live in HD" include "Otello," "La Clemenza di Tito," "Aida," "Les Troyens" and "Francesca da Rimini."

"For the seventh straight season, the splendor of 'The Met: Live in HD' series will continue to captivate fans as the passion and creative spirit of America's world-reknowned opera company returns to cinemas nationwide," said Shelly Maxwell, executive vice president of NCM Fathom Events. "With each year, the popularity of the Met's in-cinema series continues to grow bigger and Fathom is proud to bring opera fans across the U.S. the opportunity to experience this treaure of the arts with their families and friends."

"The Met: Live in HD" is shown in more than 1,900 cinemas in 60 countries, making the Met the only arts institution with an ongoing global art series of this scale. "The Met: Live in HD" series is made possible by a generous grant from The Neubauer Family Foundation. Global corporate sponsor of "The Met: Live in HD" is Bloomberg.