Pour les amateurs d’opéra : 15 European Opera Houses to Offer Free Online Streaming
A free showing of Verdi’s “La Traviata” will be streamed live from Madrid’s Teatro Real on Friday, inaugurating a new program backed by the European Union in which some of Europe’s top houses will stream performances free to make opera more accessible.
The operas — from 15 presenters including the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London and the Aix-en-Provence Festival — will be streamed live on the website of the Opera Platform, at www.theoperaplatform.eu. The site said that subtitles in six languages would be available, and each opera would remain available on demand for six months.
Next month the website will offer a stream of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung” from Vienna conducted by Simon Rattle.
The Opera Platform is a partnership between Opera Europa, which represents opera companies and festivals; Arte, the cultural broadcasting channel, and the participating opera companies. It has a $4.5 million budget, Reuters reported, with about half coming from the European Union’s cultural budget.