With one more broadcast to go in the current season, New York's Metropolitan Opera has announced yet another expansion of its successful high-definition simulcast program.

Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez, seen here rehearsing La Fille du Regiment, will be featured an HD simulcast of Bellini's La Sonnambula next year. Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez, seen here rehearsing La Fille du Regiment, will be featured an HD simulcast of Bellini's La Sonnambula next year.
(Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera/Associated Press)

Met officials said Tuesday that plans to bump its HD offerings from the current eight shows to 11 next season, including the company's Sept. 22 opening night gala celebrating Renée Fleming and featuring the New York soprano singing excerpts from three of her signature opera roles.

However, the opening night gala will be broadcast in North America only.

The rest of the regular, Saturday afternoon simulcast lineup will include:

  • Richard Strauss' Salome, featuring Karita Mattila.
  • John Adams' Doctor Atomic.
  • Hector Berlioz's Le Damnation de Faust, starring Susan Graham and Marcello Giordani.
  • Jules Massenet's Thais, featuring Fleming and Thomas Hampson.
  • Giacomo Puccini's La Rondine, featuring husband and wife team Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna.
  • Christoph Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, featuring Danielle de Niese and Stephanie Blythe.
  • Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, featuring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon.
  • Puccini's Madama Butterfly, in the late Anthony Minghella's staging, featuring Cristina Gallardo-Domas and Giordani.
  • Vincenzo Bellini's La Sonnambula, featuring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez.
  • Gioacchino Rossini's La Cenerentola, featuring Elina Garanca and Lawrence Brownlee.

In addition to more titles, officials said, more countries have signed up to participate in the screening program, including cinemas in Argentina, Costa Rica, Croatia, Ireland and Mexico.

The Met's broadcasts are also making their way into other formats: CBC's revamped digital channel bold, for example, will show two of last season's operas (Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Puccini's Il Trittico) this month.

Season to end with Fille du Regiment

The current Met HD broadcast season will conclude with Saturday's simulcast of the company's new production of Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment (with a repeat scheduled for May 10).  

Starring Peruvian tenor Florez and French soprano Dessay, the production's debut in New York Monday night won critical acclaim and was notable for the audience's Act 1 standing ovation for Florez after he soared through the aria Pour mes ame.

He subsequently delivered an encore, rare in most opera houses, and easily sailed through the song's challenging nine high Cs a second time.

With files from the Associated Press