Fathom Events and the Metropolitan Opera have announced an agreement to renew The Met: Live in HD series. Since 2006, the series has delivered scores of performances from the Met’s stage at New York City’s Lincoln Center to cinema screens nationwide. The renewal will take the partnership through the 2025–26 season, culminating with the 20th anniversary of the Live in HD program.
The announcement comes ahead of the December 10th Live in HD transmission of The Hours by Kevin Puts, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham and subsequent movie of the same name. The Met is presenting the world premiere staging of the work, which is one of seven new Met productions presented in the 2022-23 season, including the Met premiere of Cherubini’s Medea. The other new productions are Giordano’s Fedora, Wagner’s Lohengrin, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), and Terence Blanchard’s Champion. Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, transmitted live to movie screens in 2021, marked the first opera at the Met by a Black composer. The HD season will also feature performances of Verdi’s Falstaff and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. A special encore screening of Mozart’s The Magic Flute will also be presented on December 3rd as a part of Fathom Events 2022 holiday slate.
According to Fathom Events, the partnership that began with fewer than 100 theaters has grown to an average of 725 theaters annually and an estimated audience of more than 580,000 annually. The partnership has seen a total revenue of over $205M which translates to approximately 10 million tickets sold. According to Comscore data, Fathom’s events with The Met consistently rank among the box office top ten on the date of the event, and Fathom Events reports that The Met now accounts for half of the company’s live-event box office revenue.
“The Met is a cultural touchstone and one of the most iconic global performing-arts brands,” said Ray Nutt, Fathom Events chief executive officer. “As exceptional and distinctly special is the work that The Met brings to audiences, Peter and his team are just as exceptional. They have been an enormously valuable partner in our own growth at Fathom Events. During the term of this new agreement, we will have been partnered for two decades, and we look forward to continuing to work with the Met to bring more high-quality performances to fans around the country.”
“The Met’s Live in HD series has brought the beauty and power of opera to millions of people who ordinarily would not have access to it,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said. “We are grateful to have such an excellent partner in Fathom and look forward to continuing our shared mission of making world-class opera available to cinema audiences throughout the United States and beyond.”
For tickets and a full list of participating theaters, visit FathomEvents.com.
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