{"id":320661,"date":"2026-08-13T20:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/320661\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T20:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:20:12","slug":"the-mets-free-outdoor-opera-festival-returns-this-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/320661\/","title":{"rendered":"The Met\u2019s Free Outdoor Opera Festival Returns This September"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are few things more quintessentially New York than catching <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/newyork\/theater\/metropolitan-opera-house-at-lincoln-center\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">world-class opera at Lincoln Center<\/a>. But catching it outside, under the stars, without spending a cent? Even better.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metopera.org\/season\/summer-events\/summer-hd-festival\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Metropolitan Opera\u2019s Summer HD Festival<\/a> is returning to Josie Robertson Plaza next month, transforming the space outside the opera house into a massive open-air cinema for six nights from September 2 through 7. Now in its 17th edition, the annual festival will screen performances from the Met\u2019s Live in HD series on a giant screen, with approximately 2,500 seats available each night.\u00a0Every screening is completely free, with no advance tickets or reservations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>RECOMMENDED:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/newyork\/news\/27-season-of-live-programming-including-a-long-awaited-stage-reunion-between-audra-mcdonald-and-billy-porter-080526\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lincoln Center announces 2026\u201327 season of live programming, including a long-awaited stage reunion between Audra McDonald and Billy Porter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s festival technically features five operas across six nights, kicking off September 2 with Act I of Wagner\u2019s epic Tristan und Isolde. Acts II and III follow the next night, so consider those two evenings one very dramatic date with Wagner.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the lineup is similarly stacked: Bellini\u2019s I Puritani screens September 4 at 7:30 pm, followed by Tchaikovsky\u2019s Eugene Onegin on September 5 at 8 pm. On September 6, the Met will show Gabriela Lena Frank\u2019s El \u00daltimo Sue\u00f1o de Frida y Diego, a magical-realist opera that reunites Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera on the Day of the Dead. The festival wraps September 7 with Puccini\u2019s La Boh\u00e8me, presented in Franco Zeffirelli\u2019s famously lavish production of 19th-century Paris.\u00a0All screenings except I Puritani begin at 8 pm and every presentation will include full open captions.<\/p>\n<p>So grab a friend, head to Lincoln Center and settle in for an evening of heartbreak, doomed romance and soaring arias. For once, one of the best seats in the house might not actually be in the house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are few things more quintessentially New York than catching world-class opera at Lincoln Center. But catching it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[8122,75,84,83,9,24,8123,63,905],"class_list":["post-320661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-categories-theater","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news-theater-performance","tag-nyc","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}