Opera Matinee

WETA Classical is Washington's home for opera year round. From December through early June, experience the power and passion of the Metropolitan Opera's Saturday Matinee Broadcasts. The rest of the year features performances from leading opera houses around the world.

  • L'Elisir d'Amore

    L'Elisir d'Amore

    April 6, 2024 1:00 pm

    Gaetano Donizetti

    The Metropolitan Opera's 1974 performance of Donizetti's charming comedy of a poor but good-hearted country boy who wins the love of a beautiful, wealthy heiress with the help of the magic love “elixir”. Featuring Judith Blegen and Luciano Pavarotti, conducted by Max Rudolf.
  • Die Fledermaus

    Die Fledermaus

    April 13, 2024 1:00 pm

    Johann Strauss

    The Metropolitan Opera celebrates the 150th anniversary of Strauss's sparkling, lighthearted Viennese opera, Die Fledermaus with the 1986 archival performance and an all-star cast that includes Kiri Te Kanawa.
  • La Rondine

    La Rondine

    April 20, 2024 1:00 pm

    Giacomo Puccini

    Puccini's beautiful and bittersweet love story, La Rondine, is a tale of a romance threatened by a woman's former life as a courtesan. This Metropolitan Opera live performance features Angel Blue and Jonathan Tetelman.
  • Fire Shut Up In My Bones

    Fire Shut Up In My Bones

    April 27, 2024 1:00 pm

    Terence Blanchard

    Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up In My Bones, is based on Charles M. Blow's memoir of a life of a young man as he navigates adolescence and struggles to overcome a life of trauma. This presentation of the Metropolitan Opera features Ryan Speedo Green in the principal role.
  • El Niño

    El Niño

    May 4, 2024 1:00 pm

    John Adams

    American composer John Adams's extraordinarily dramatic retelling of the Nativity in El Niño, an opera-oratorio which incorporates sacred and secular texts in English, Spanish, and Latin, from Biblical times to the present day. This Metropolitan Opera premiere and broadcast is conducted by Marin Alsop.
  • Madama Butterfly

    Madama Butterfly

    May 11, 2024 1:00 pm

    Giacomo Puccini

    Puccini's timeless and heartbreaking Madama Butterfly, an audience favorite of a loyal geisha who belief in her marriage to an American naval offer ends in tragedy, is presented live by the Metropolitan Opera featuring Asmik Grigorian in the title role.
  • The Hours

    The Hours

    May 18, 2024 1:00 pm

    Kevin Puts

    The Hours, Kevin Puts's heart-wrenching drama of three women from different eras whose lives are connected through Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, is presented live, a repeat performance from its Metropolitan Opera premiere last season. Starring Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato and Kelli O'Hara.
  • La Fanciulla del West

    La Fanciulla del West

    May 25, 2024 1:00 pm

    Giacomo Puccini

    Puccini's sweeping romance, La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West), is set during the California Gold Rush. This production of the Metropolitan Opera from 2018 features Eva-Maria Westbroek and Jonas Kaufmann.
  • Cinderella

    Cinderella

    June 1, 2024 1:00 pm

    Jules Massenet

    The Metropolitan Opera's fantastic staging of Massenet’s Cendrillon -- based on the Cinderella fairytale -- is presented with an English translation in an abridged 90-minute adaptation, with mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as its rags-to-riches princess. Led by Emmanuel Villaume. A recorded performance from January 2022.
  • Orfeo ed Euridice

    Orfeo ed Euridice

    June 8, 2024 1:00 pm

    Christoph Willibald Gluck

    Gluck's immortal opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, based on the myth of Orpheus, who travels to the underworld to retrieve his dead wife, Eurydice, is presented live by the Metropolitan Opera, featuring Anthony Rolfe Costanzo and Ying Fang in the title roles.