The streams will be free to the public every night beginning at 7:30pm at MetOpera.org for a 23-hour timeframe. The schedule for each night is as follows:

Monday, February 1 – The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess

Starring Angel Blue, Golda Schultz, Latonia Moore, Denyce Graves, Frederick Ballentine, Eric Owens, Alfred Walker, and Donovan Singletary, conducted by David Robertson. Production by James Robinson. Originally aired February 1, 2020.

Tuesday, February 2 – Verdi’s La Forza del Destino 

Starring Leontyne Price, Isola Jones, Giuseppe Giacomini, Leo Nucci, and Bonaldo Giaiotti, conducted by James Levine. Production by John Dexter. Originally aired March 24, 1984.

Wednesday, February 3 – Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites 

Starring Maria Ewing, Jessye Norman, Betsy Norden, Régine Crespin, and Florence Quivar, conducted by Manuel Rosenthal. Production by John Dexter. Aired on April 4, 1987.

Thursday, February 4 – Rossini’s La Cenerentola

Starring Elina Garanča, Lawrence Brownlee, Simone Alberghini, Alessandro Corbelli, and John Relyea, conducted by Maurizio Benini. Production by Cesare Lievi. Aired on May 9, 2009.

Friday, February 5 – Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro

Starring Carol Vaness, Kathleen Battle, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Allen, and Ruggero Raimondi, conducted by James Levine. Production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Aired on December 14, 1985.

Saturday, February 6 – Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos

Starring Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Tatiana Troyanos, and James King, conducted by James Levine. Production by Bodo Igesz. From March 12, 1988.

Sunday, February 7 – Puccini’s Tosca

Starring Shirley Verrett, Luciano Pavarotti, and Cornell MacNeil, conducted by James Conlon. Directed by Tito Gobbi. Aired on December 19, 1978.

Monday, February 8 – Wagner’s Das Rheingold

Starring Wendy Bryn Harmer, Stephanie Blythe, Patricia Bardon, Richard Croft, Gerhard Siegel, Dwayne Croft, Bryn Terfel, Eric Owens, Franz-Josef Selig, and Hans-Peter König, conducted by James Levine. Production by Robert Lepage. Aired on October 9, 2010.

Tuesday, February 9 – Verdi’s Ernani

Starring Leona Mitchell, Luciano Pavarotti, Sherrill Milnes, and Ruggero Raimondi, conducted by James Levine. Production by Pier Luigi Samaritani. Aired on December 17, 1983.

Wednesday, February 10 – Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia 

Starring Kathleen Battle, Rockwell Blake, Leo Nucci, Enzo Dara, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, conducted by Ralf Weikert. Production by John Cox. Aired on December 3, 1988.

Thursday, February 11 – Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera

Starring Aprile Millo, Harolyn Blackwell, Florence Quivar, Luciano Pavarotti, and Leo Nucci, conducted by James Levine. Production by Piero Faggioni. Aired on January 26, 1991.

Friday, February 12 – Philip Glass’s Akhnaten

Starring Dísella Lárusdóttir, J’Nai Bridges, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Aaron Blake, Will Liverman, Richard Bernstein, and Zachary James, conducted by Karen Kamensek. Production by Phelim McDermott. Aired on November 23, 2019.

Saturday, February 13 – Berlioz’s Les Troyens 

Starring Tatiana Troyanos, Jessye Norman, Plácido Domingo, and Allan Monk, conducted by James Levine. Production by Fabrizio Melano. Aired on October 8, 1983.

Sunday, February 14 – Wagner’s Die Walkure 

Starring Hildegard Behrens, Jessye Norman, Christa Ludwig, Gary Lakes, James Morris, and Kurt Moll, conducted by James Levine. Production by Otto Schenk. Aired on April 8, 1989.

The post The Bold, The Black, and the Beautiful: Metropolitan Opera to Stream Black Operas in February appeared first on Broadway Black.

Marcia Sells. Photo courtesy of The Met by Eileen Barasso

We will never stop supporting Black women getting their things! This past year has been rough, but from the pain, institutions are slowly starting to promote tangible change. The Metropolitan Opera has made Marcia Sells the company’s first-ever Chief Diversity Officer. Among her responsibilities in the new position, Sells will be tasked with implementing a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) plan which will be at the core of the company’s hiring, artistic planning, and audience engagement activities. She will also be helping to identify the company’s systematic and structural inequities while working with the marketing and development departments on broadening the company’s base audience. 

Her Black art roots run deep. She got her start as a dancer at Dance Theater of Harlem, then went on to earn her law degree from Columbia University. She has worked for countless corporations from the NBA to Reuters. Right before accepting this position, she was the Dean of Students at Harvard Law School since 2015. 

“At a time when social justice rightly demands that we address the inequities of our art form, I’m pleased that we have chosen the ideal candidate in Marcia for implementing long overdue and necessary change,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s General Manager. 

Congrats Marcia! We cannot wait to see what you do with this company!

The post Marcia Sells: The Metropolitan Opera’s first Chief Diversity Officer appeared first on Broadway Black.