Lepage's Das Rheingold in Met's new HD season

New York's Metropolitan Opera plans to bring 12 of its operas to cinema screens in 2010-11, including a production of Das Rheingold by Canada's Robert Lepage, it has announced.

An additional 300 cinemas will take part in the high-definition simulcast screenings, which began in December 2006, including onesin Egypt, Portugal and Spain, Met director Peter Gelb said Wednesday.

The simulcasts will go out to a total of 1,500 screens in 46 countries, including more than 100 in Canada. Canada's Cineplex Entertainment has increased the number of participating cinemas for 2010-11, according to Pat Marshall, vice-president of communications.

In addition to the live screenings, Cineplex Entertainment plans toexpanditsencore presentations ofthe operas, screening them Monday evenings as well as weekend afternoons.

The screenings, in their fifth season, start Oct. 9 with a new production ofRichard Wagner's Das Rheingold,helmed by Canadian superstar director Lepage.

Lepage is known for his innovative staging and use of technology, an example of which was seen last yearinthe Canadian Opera Company production of The Nightingale and Other Fables, part of which was performed ina pool of water on stage.

The performancein New York is almost sold out, but the simulcasts reached more than 800,000 people in 2009-10 and could draw still more in the coming season.

Other operas in the 2010-11 season are:

• Wagner's Die Walkuere.
• Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov with Ren Pape.
• Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo.
• John Adams's Nixon in China.
• Gioachino Rossini's Le Comte Ory.
• Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck's Iphignie en Tauride with Placido Domingo.
• Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale with Anna Netrebko.
• Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.
• Verdi's Il Trovatore.
• Giacomo Puccini's La Fanciulla del West.
• Richard Strauss's Capriccio with Rene Fleming.

Last season, more than 2.4 million Live in HD tickets were sold online or at local cinemas fornine operas.

Canadians have been early fans of the simulcasts, which include backstage interviews and commentaries fromwell-known opera stars, and many performanceshave sold out.

The HD broadcasts have also been a windfall for the Met, Gelb said.

"It's a financial shot in the arm, a new source of revenue which we sorely need as we fight the challenges of the recession," he said.