Culture by streaming - here you can watch an opera online

The year 2020 will inevitably go into our history books for all time as the year of restrictions. Due to a pandemic, which was triggered by the Coronavirus Covid-19, people were significantly restricted in their freedom of movement in 2020 due to numerous legal regulations and requirements.

Some skeptics even saw their fundamental rights threatened by the fact that they could only visit football stadiums, casinos, concerts, restaurants or the opera online. As in every crisis, there were also some winners, organizers of the entertainment industry who were able to save their company through particularly creative ideas.

Although thanks to several medical breakdowns, it will be available to us in 2021 a vaccine that is to prevent a serious disease of the Covid-19 virus, scientists and politicians are already preparing us that we can continue to live our lives to a limited extent in 2021.

Among other things, this could lead to the fact that in 2021 you cannot visit an opera as usual and see a performance there. Fortunately, this no longer has to be a reason today to have to blow tribulation. Thanks to the creativity of the organizers, because you can still look at your favorite piece, on the Internet via live stream and we will tell you where you can do this.

The Bavarian State Opera

The Bavarian State Opera is still in Munich, but you can only view the building from the outside, because performances in front of spectators will not be visited until further notice. Fortunately, clever minds from the State Opera have already thought about how to reach an even wider audience well before the pandemic and the state opera .

Here you can visit the opera exactly as you would do it personally. This means that you can buy your entry ticket and lean back comfortably and enjoy the piece. The magic word is video-on-demand.

But the Bavarian State Opera goes even further, because Monday pieces are even offered as a free stream! Further information on the program of the video-on-demand offer and the free Mondays can be found in the website of the Bavarian State Opera.

The Vienna State Opera

Just like numerous other operas in Europe, the Vienna State Opera, with the regulations for containing the Covid-19 virus, was also confronted with the regulations of the Austrian government. Vienna State Opera also had to cancel all ideas until further notice, interested opera visitors can currently only reserve tickets for one of the performances, unfortunately the regular ticket sales are also exposed to further notice.

However, the organizers of the Vienna State Opera events do not prevent these restrictions from continuing performances and making them accessible to their audience. The demonstrations are transferred from Vienna via live stream online all over the world.

But you can not only see the pieces, but also visit the digital archive of the Vienna State Opera, because this is made available to the audience free of charge during the Lockdown. Here you will find video recordings of numerous performances, including the clapping of an existing audience.

The current online schedule is here.

The Stuttgart State Opera

The Stuttgart State Opera has been able to make a name for itself throughout Europe, because the pieces are listed in one of the most beautiful opera buildings, the Stuttgart Opera House. Those responsible for the Stuttgart State Opera came up with a digital concept during the first initial and event restrictions in spring 2020, which was again taken up in November in November, during the new lockdown.

The motto of this concept is: "Opera despite Corona" and you even came up with your own hashtag for this. "Opera despite Corona" means that you can watch an opera recording on your own YouTube channel of the Stuttgart State Opera every week. As with the Bavarian State Opera, this is implemented in the form of a video-on-demand program.

By watching the ideas of the Stuttgart State Opera online, you also support all people involved in the performance, including the artists. All information about the events can be found on the website of the Stuttgart State Opera. It is interesting that the Stuttgart State Opera of its International Audience seems to be aware of, because the website has an English version and all video recordings have an English subtitle.

Opera performances directly from the opera house in your home: In the season 2024/25 you can look forward to free streams of selected new productions again. These transmissions are realized by our digital partner, LBBW, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg.

The Metropolitan Opera

However, German or European operas are not only affected by Corona Pandemie, the virus is responsible for the failure of opera events worldwide. Many a German opera lover likes to look outside the box and maybe even want to visit an international opera like the world -famous Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan, New York City.

A personal visit is of course absolutely impossible due to the pandemic, because it is neither possible without being able to enter the USA without restrictions, nor to look at a demonstration in the Metropolitan Opera, as this, like many other operas worldwide, this also had to cancel all events until further notice.

But also in New York, people have thought about how to make people happy in this difficult time, i.e. enable them to visit opera. The Metropolitan Opera probably has the most generous online streaming offer worldwide, because every day you can watch a new demonstration on the opera of the opera or through the app on its mobile device and all of this completely free of charge. There is also an on-demand service, which gives you access to even more performances.

Operavision (former Theoperaplatform.eu)

Exceptionally, this website is not an opera that is aimed at the Internet on the Internet. Theoperaplatform.eu was built in 2015 and is the result of a merger of several European opera houses. The opera houses on this website place some of their performances completely free of charge on the Internet.

This outstanding offer comes that at least one of the large demonstrations per month can be followed in the live stream. All performances set there are available for six months. Since this is an international European project, opera pieces in six different languages, of course, Operavision

Komische Oper are represented from Germany. In addition, you can watch pieces from the opera houses Riga, Amsterdam or Turin and the Franco-German cultural channel ARTE is also involved in the project.