Nightly Opera Streams, December 28–January 3

This week of free Nightly Opera Streams celebrates one of the greatest voices of all time, beloved Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. Explore the full lineup with this helpful sguide.

View the Playbills from the original performance dates for each stream, including synopses, program notes, and more.

In the storied history of the Metropolitan Opera, Luciano Pavarotti holds a secure place as one of the company’s most celebrated tenors.

Take a look back at the history of the Met on TV, which extends all the way back to experimental broadcasts nearly 80 years ago.

Puccini’s operatic thrill ride Tosca features a fictional diva that’s one of the ultimate showcases for the real thing. But at a time when the term “diva” is thrown around seemingly willy-nilly, what exactly did the composer have in mind?

The country bumpkin Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore was one of Luciano Pavarotti’s most frequent and celebrated roles. Here he sings his mournful Act II aria in the 1991 telecast of the opera, streaming this week.

Celebrated soprano Kathleen Battle, who stars in this week’s streams of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, mesmerized Met audiences with the purity and beauty of her voice. Read about her career with the company.

The Met has presented nearly 1,000 performances of Puccini’s Tosca, starting with the work’s U.S. premiere in 1901. Explore the opera’s fascinating history at the Met.

Learn about the Met career of great American baritone Cornell MacNeil, one of the great singers of the second half of the 20th century, who stars in this week’s stream of Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini.

The great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti sings the Act II aria “Odi il voto” in the 1983 telecast of Verdi’s Ernani, streaming this week.

In more than 300 Met performances, great Italian soprano Renata Scotto, who sings Mimì in this week’s stream of Puccini’s La Bohème, riveted audiences with her idiomatic singing and powerful acting.

In this podcast episode, soprano Nadine Sierra and host Rhiannon Giddens discuss the overwhelming emotions of young love and dive into the details of Gilda’s breathtaking Act I aria, “Caro nome.”

With a 51-year Met career including nearly 1,700 performances, bass Paul Plishka is one of the company’s most beloved artists.

One of opera’s greatest voices, Dolora Zajick has delivered knockout Met performances of many of the repertory’s most dramatic mezzo-soprano roles over the past three decades.

The operas of Giuseppe Verdi have been performed around 5,700 times at the Metropolitan Opera, more than those of any other composer by a wide margin.

Enjoy on-demand access to the Met's entire catalog of more than 800 complete performances on all your favorite devices with our subscription streaming service. Start your seven-day free trial today.