For 20 years, the Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” series has transmitted performances from the Met’s stage to cinemas around the world. Dartmouth’s Loew Auditorium screened “Twenty Years of the Met in Cinemas: An Anniversary Celebration” on Saturday as part of its Met Opera in HD programming. Hosted by soprano Renée Fleming, the anniversary film commemorates that history through a compilation of performances from the company’s extensive archive. Rather than functioning as a traditional documentary, the film is closer to a curated album of operatic moments: a collection of voices, faces, sets and performances that demonstrates both the power and the limitations of experiencing opera on screen.
The film’s greatest strength is its intimacy. Opera is often experienced from a distance, both physically and emotionally. From the back of a theater, the audience can take in the scale of the stage, the orchestra and the set, but individual facial expressions are not always visible. On the cinema screen, the camera brings the performers remarkably close. A raised eyebrow, a trembling mouth or a moment of hesitation becomes part of the performance. The result is an experience that cannot replace live opera but offers an entirely different way of seeing it.
This is particularly effective in the excerpts from Bizet’s “Carmen,” featuring Elīna Garanča as Carmen and Roberto Alagna as Don José. The emotional intensity of the final scene is heightened by the camera’s attention to their faces and physical proximity. Carmen’s defiance and vulnerability are not simply communicated through her singing; they are visible in the smallest changes in her expression. The close-up makes the performance feel psychologically immediate, allowing the audience to see the character’s internal conflict in a way that may be difficult from a distant seat in the opera house.
The film also gains depth by offering glimpses of the performers outside their roles. Before certain excerpts, viewers hear singers discuss their characters, their interpretations and the challenges of performing the same role night after night. These moments are brief, but they add valuable context to the performances that follow. Hearing an artist speak in an ordinary conversational voice before watching them transform into a larger-than-life character creates a fascinating contrast. The audience is reminded that opera’s apparent grandeur is built through deliberate physical, vocal and emotional choices.
In an interview prior to a performance of “Carmen,” for example, Garanča describes Carmen as being “like a tennis ball,” constantly moving and changing direction, and explains that each night she tries to capture a different part of the character’s essence. Her comment adds depth to the performance because it presents opera not as a fixed object, but as a living art form that changes with every performer and every night. Through “Twenty Years,” the audience is not simply watching a famous interpretation of Carmen; they are also being invited to understand the creative process behind it.
These glimpses into the performers’ creative processes, however, also point to one of the film’s limitations. The performers’ comments are often among the most engaging parts of the film, but they end just as they begin to reveal something meaningful about the artists or their characters. More discussion of the Metropolitan Opera’s role in preserving these performances, as well as more context about the singers and productions, would have given the program greater historical depth. Still, the film does not need to be a comprehensive documentary. Its purpose is less to explain the Met than to celebrate what its cinema broadcasts have made possible.
That celebratory focus extends to the breadth of the programming, with the variety being a major strength. The film moves across different periods, languages and styles, presenting excerpts from works such as Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville,” Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro,” Philip Glass’s “Akhnaten,” Puccini’s “La Bohème,” Verdi’s “Nabucco” and Wagner’s “Die Walküre.” This range makes the program especially accessible to viewers who may not already be familiar with the Metropolitan Opera’s repertoire. Even when a particular opera is unfamiliar, the visual and musical language of the excerpt can still be immediately engaging.
The film also allows viewers to develop a deeper relationship with the sets and visual worlds of these productions. In the excerpt from “Akhnaten,” the Egyptian setting and the staging of the funeral of Amenhotep III create a striking visual world. The ritualistic imagery, including the weighing of the heart against a feather, demonstrates how opera can combine costume, design, music and theater into one expansive form. The film gives viewers an opportunity to encounter these productions as visual experiences as much as musical ones.
The intermission also shapes the way the program is experienced. Because the film runs for 150 minutes, the break allows the audience to absorb what it has seen before beginning the second half. At the same time, the intermission emphasizes that this is not one continuous narrative. The program feels more like a live retrospective or a collection of performances than a conventional movie. That structure is appropriate for an anniversary celebration, though it can occasionally make the film feel fragmented.
Live opera remains a unique experience. The physical presence of the singers, the sound of the orchestra in the same room and the shared energy of the audience cannot be completely reproduced through film. Yet “Twenty Years of the Met in Cinemas” demonstrates that cinema offers its own form of valuable access, enabling audiences to see details that might otherwise be missed, revisit performances by artists who may no longer perform certain roles and preserve moments that would otherwise disappear after the curtain falls.
