Feeling a little devoid of culture during quarantine? Here’s an idea: This Friday, May 1st, hop on the Metropolitan Opera website and catch a stream of Verdi’s Aida. Consider this the salad antidote to your junk-food diet of Too Hot To Handle. (We’re calling ourselves out as much as you.)

For the past seven weeks and counting, the Met Opera has been streaming HD telecasts every night. It hopes to “provide some grand opera solace to opera lovers in these extraordinarily difficult times,” according to Met General Manager Peter Gelb. Titles streamed on Fridays are chosen by viewers (aptly titled Viewers’ Choice).

This week, viewers chose fan-favorite show Aida, which took the Metropolitan Opera stage in 1985.

This particular performance marked the farewell show for opera legend Leontyne Price, who made Aida her “signature role,” according to the Met website. “Price is a commanding, velvet-voiced Ethiopian princess, and perfectly captures the Verdian anguish of one caught between political duty and romantic love,” the Met writes of this historic performance.

If Verdian anguish isn’t your bag, you might prefer the Thursday, April 30th live stream of Marnie. Marnie is a contemporary thriller by composer Nico Muhly that premiered at the Met in 2018. In this adaptation of Winston Graham’s 1961 novel—which also inspired Alfred Hitchock’s 1964 movie of the same name—“a disturbed young con-woman whose repressed childhood trauma triggers multiple shifts of identity.” The Met also promises “some of the most colorful and vibrant 60s-inspired garments ever to grace the Met stage.”

But wait, there’s more! Here’s the full lineup of this week’s Nightly Met Opera Streams:

• Tuesday, April 28th: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda. Conducted by Maurizio Benini, starring Elza van den Heever, Joyce DiDonato, and Matthew Polenzani. Transmitted live on January 19th, 2013.
• Wednesday, April 29th: Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux. Conducted by Maurizio Benini, starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Elīna Garanča, Matthew Polenzani, and Mariusz Kwiecien. Transmitted live on April 16th, 2016.
• Thursday, April 30th: Nico Muhly’s Marnie. Conducted by Roberto Spano, starring Isabel Leonard, Iestyn Davies, and Christopher Maltman. Transmitted live on November 10th, 2018.
• Friday, May 1st: Verdi’s Aida. Conducted by James Levine, starring Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, James McCracken, and Simon Estes. Transmitted live on January 3rd, 1985.
• Saturday, May 2nd: Verdi’s Luisa Miller. Conducted by Bertrand de Billy, starring Sonya Yoncheva, Piotr Beczała, and Plácido Domingo. Transmitted live on April 14th, 2018.
• Sunday, May 3rd: Borodin’s Prince Igor. Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, starring Oksana Dyka, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Ildar Abdrazakov. Transmitted live on March 1st, 2014.

Each of the encore performances is supplemented on the Met Opera site with background info, playbills, and more. So even from home, you can feel more like you’re dressed up and sitting in the audience.

You can access Nightly Opera Streams at metopera.org or via Met Opera on Demand apps. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. ET, and they’ll remain available for 23 hours after they premiere. Happy culturizing!

As information about the coronavirus pandemic rapidly changes, HelloGiggles is committed to providing accurate and helpful coverage to our readers. As such, some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, we encourage you to use online resources from CDC, WHO, and local public health departments, and visit our coronavirus hub.

The post The Metropolitan Opera is live streaming this fan-picked favorite show for free this week appeared first on HelloGiggles.