Pictured: Past production of "Semiramide" by The Metropolitan Opera. Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera.

Sarasota’s opera scene gets a little bigger this season with CineBistro Siesta Key announcing the addition of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series to its 2017–18 programming. Beginning in October, 10 productions from the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts in New York City will be live-streamed in high definition via satellite to the screens at CineBistro, where ticketholders can see the latest from the Metropolitan Opera. “It’s something we wanted to do right out of the gate,” says Cobb Theatres VP of Marketing Fred Meyers, noting the program’s success at other CineBistro locations across the country. “We’re thrilled that we’re now able to offer it to our Sarasota market.”

The series kicks off Oct. 7 with a production of Bellini’s Norma (which audiences will also get to see on the Sarasota Opera House stage this coming March) and then Mozart’s Die Zauberflote, directed by the Academy Award-nominated Julie Taymor, on Oct. 14. In November, audiences will see the Metropolitan Opera perform the American premiere of The Exterminating Angel. The series resumes in January with a production of Puccini’s Tosca, followed by a pair of productions in February, including another Puccini classic, La Boheme. March brings both Rossini’s Semiranide and Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, before the series ends in April with Verdi’s Luisa Miller and Massanet’s Cendrillon.

Each opera will have two screenings at CineBistro—a live stream while the performance is actually underway at the Lincoln Center in New York and then an encore presentation of that live performance, recorded and presented anywhere from four to 10 days after the first. Tickets are $24 for the live performance ($20 with a senior citizen discount) and $18 for the encore. All told, each opera will somewhere around 85–100 seats available, says Meyers, but extra screens can be commandeered if demand is particularly high. Full menu and restaurant service will be available as well, he says, with the additional perk of service throughout the performance, seeing as all of the operas have runtimes exceeding three hours. Tickets are currently on sale.

Pictured: Past production of "Semiramide" by The Metropolitan Opera. Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera.