A new year, and the ongoing experimental engagement between Irish cinemas and opera takes a new twist, as a new film distributor adds to the mix while different screens shift allegiance or come new to the fray.  Saturday October 10 sees the start of the new season of The Met Opera: Live in HD, and it opens – just as the real season did there a few days ago – with Luc Bondy’s controversial new production of Puccini’s Tosca.  (If you want an entertaining account of its reception, plus a review, go read Opera Chic here and here.)  Unlike last year, though, this isn’t being screened in Ireland by the Movies@ franchise in Dundrum or Swords any more, but will instead be carried by the Screen (D’Olier St) and IMC (Dún Laoghaire) in Dublin, plus Wexford and Cork Opera Houses, UCH Limerick, Gaiety Cinema Sligo, The Eye in Galway, Omniplex in Derry and Newry, and the Storm Cinema in Belfast.  Contact details for all these venues are given on Opera Ireland’s Met Screenings page.

In addition, a selection of the operas and ballets distributed by Emerging Pictures (full listing here) seem to have been appearing at all the IMC cinemas (Athlone, Ballymena, Dundalk, Dún Laoghaire, Mullingar and Thurles) as well as Movies@Dundrum and maybe more besides – please correct me if I’m wrong.  In IMC Dún Laoghaire, at least, the intended programme (playing Sundays and Mondays) is as follows:

I PURITANI: Sunday 4 & Monday 5 October

COSÌ FAN TUTTE (Mozart): 22 & 23 November

NUTCRACKER (Tchaikovsky): 13 & 14 December

OTELLO (Verdi): 31 January & 1 February

ROMÉO ET JULIETTE (Gounod): 14 & 15 February

LA RONDINE (Puccini): 7 & 8 March

SWAN LAKE (Tchaikovsky): 11 & 12 April

These are given as ‘club screenings’ so that the films don’t have to go through the IFCO certification process, so officially you need to be an ‘opera club member’ – as far as I am aware membership is a nominal €1, though you if you’re going for the first time and want check this out with IMC the contact details are as follows: (tel: (01) 230 1367 or 230 1399, email: dunlaoghaire@imccinemagroup.com).

Comparing this selection with the full list on offer from the distributors (as here) is a bit depressing, seeing as we’re missing out on La Fura dels Baus’ spectacular productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre from Valencia, the L’Orfeo from La Scala, Eugene Onegin from Opèra de Paris, or Daniela Dessì as Bellini’s Norma from the Teatro Communale Bologna, but the quality of what we are getting is very good, and it will be intriguing to see Claus Guth’s new production of Così fan tutte from this year’s Salzburg Festival – expect it to be every bit as challenging as the new Tosca from New York, if not more so.  One odd thing though – I wonder what Opera Ireland think of them screening the Salzburg Festival production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette just a fortnight or so before their own staging of the same work?