By Robert Croan
On Saturday, Fort Lauderdale native Nadine Sierra’s superlative portrayal of the eponymous Amina in Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula (The Sleepwalker) opened the Metropolitan Opera’s 2025-26 Live in HD season — simulcast screenings of Saturday afternoon performances distributed by Fathom Events in cinemas worldwide.
The series is a valuable part of South Florida’s classical music scene, augmenting the limited and more pricey live productions provided by Florida Grand Opera (in Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center and Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center), and by Palm Beach Opera (in that city’s Kravis Center). Unfortunately, no area radio station offers the Met’s weekly Saturday radio broadcasts, although they may be streamed on the internet from New York’s WQXR-FM, Chicago’s WFMT and other big-city FM stations nationwide.
Sierra’s appearance was of special interest locally, as the 37-year-old soprano is already one of opera’s most beloved luminaries, on her way to becoming one of her generation’s superstars. On the basis of this Sonnambula, along with recent appearances in the title roles of Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata and Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, this artist can hold her own with any of the “Golden Age” protagonists from the second half of the past century.
Following the underperformed La sonnambula is Giacomo Puccini’s familiar La bohème, Nov. 8, in a now-iconic production designed by the late Franco Zeffirelli. The cast, led by Keri-Lynn Wilson and Freddie De Tommaso, is mostly young and as yet unproven, but this old chestnut practically sings itself.
Nov. 22 brings Richard Strauss’s Arabella, an exquisite rarity — something of a sequel to Der Rosenkavalier — that should not be missed. This wry yet warm-hearted take on Viennese fin-de-siècle society is filled with beautiful melodies, a waltz-permeated ballroom scene and a bedroom trick copped out of Shakespeare All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure.
Umberto Giordano’s score for Andrea Chénier, which follows on Dec. 13, is less than first-rate, and the libretto has always struck me as an unintentional parody of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, but this opera is an effective vehicle for its title tenor, and the indomitable Piotr Beczala is always worth hearing. Plus, the soprano’s solo turn, “La mamma morta,” is the aria that transformed Denzel Washington’s character in the 1993 film, Philadelphia, from homophobe to advocate.
On Jan. 10, 2026, a second Bellini masterpiece, I puritani, will highlight another of today’s genuine divas, Lisette Oropesa, alongside tenor Lawrence Brownlee, who will show his chops with some of the highest notes demanded of a tenor in any opera ever. The new production is staged and designed by Charles Edwards. Later that month, Jan. 24, the series will screen the new opera by Mason Bates, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, recorded live earlier in the season.
Central to the season is a new production of Wagner’s glorious Tristan und Isolde, March 21, staged by Yuval Sharon and conducted by the company’s music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The ill-fated lovers will be top-tier Wagnerian Lise Davidson as Isolde, with tenor Michael Spyres as her Tristan.
Tchaikovsky’s tuneful Eugene Onegin, May 2, brings Russian baritone Igor Golovatenko as the gloomy but poetic titular protagonist, with Asmik Grigorian as the lovestruck heroine, Tatiana. And the season concludes May 30 with the Met premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s El ultimo sueño de Frida y Diego, an unusual retelling of the stormy relationship between Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Conducted by Nézet-Séguin, the starry cast includes mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and baritone Carlos Alvarez as the passionate couple, living a reversal of the Orpheus and Euridice myth, and soprano Gabriella Reyes as Catrina, the Aztec keeper of souls.
All Saturday performances begin at 1 p.m., with the exception of Tristan und Isolde, which starts at noon. Details, including a link to finding the cinema closest to you: metopera.org/hd; or fathomevents.com.