WQXR's 'OPERAVORE' and Symphony Space Presenting Hi-Def Broadcasts from Royal Opera House

WQXR 105.9 FM, America's most listened to classical music radio station, is bringing the Royal Opera House from London’s Covent Garden to New York City airwaves for the first time--presenting five operas on the silver screen in partnership with Symphony Space.

Starting Saturday, September 14 with Verdi’s Don Carlo, WQXR will broadcast rep from the ROH's 2012-13 season, continuing on consecutive Saturdays at 1 p.m. EST (through November 2).

Assured auditory highlights include: Plácido Domingo in Verdi’s Nabucco, Bryn Terfel in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Siegfried and Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak as Nemorino and Adina, respectively, in L'elisir d'amore by Donizetti.

As always, on-demand streaming will be made available via www.wqxr.org.

And beginning Sunday, September 22, WQXR and Symphony Space present “Royal Opera House Cinema,” offering screenings of select operas in high-definition video.

These visual highlights will include: Verdi’s Nabucco, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and Rossini’s La donna del lago from the 2012-13 stage year, as well as the current season’s Les vêpres siciliennes by Verdi and Wagner’s Parsifal.

"Royal Opera House Cinema" showings will take place on Sundays at 3 p.m. at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, with introductions by Naomi Lewin, host of WQXR’s OPERAVORE, as well as other stars from the opera world.

Tickets for the Symphony Space screenings are on sale now at www.symphonyspace.org, (212) 864-5400 or by visiting the box office at 2537 Broadway (at 95th Street) from Tuesday-Sunday, 1-6 p.m.

“As part of our expanding opera offerings on WQXR, we are thrilled to be working with the Royal Opera House on this exciting new multiplatform collaboration,” said Graham Parker, WQXR's general manager.

“For the first time, WQXR will broadcast Royal Opera House performances to our local New York audiences on WQXR 105.9 FM and to our worldwide base of opera lovers via our online opera stream, OPERAVORE. With our friends at Symphony Space, we will present five Royal Opera House high-definition performances from their celebrated cinema series."

Alastair Roberts, managing director of Royal Opera House Enterprises, also seemed excited: "We have seen a real increase in demand for the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet in cinemas over the past couple of years. We are delighted to be working with WQXR to bring the 'Royal Opera House Cinema Season' to New York on-air and in the cinema, helping us to reach even wider audiences.”