Met Opera's HD Live in Schools Series Enters Fifth Season With Widest Reach Ever

The Met: HD Live in Schools, a national program that provides students, teachers, and administrators with educational resources tied to select live transmissions of Metropolitan Opera performances, and arranges for students to attend the live Met HD transmissions locally, will reach more students and teachers in its fifth season than ever before. The program, which provides educational resources geared to select performances from The Met: Live in HD-the Met's award-winning series of live opera transmissions to movie theaters around the world-will reach approximately 15,000 students in 29 school districts in 21 states during the 2012-13 season.

Five new districts have joined the program this season: North Clackamas Schools in Milwaukie, Oregon; Waterloo Community Schools in Waterloo, Iowa; New Orleans Area Public Schools in New Orleans, Louisiana; Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California; and Buffalo Public Schools in Buffalo, New York.

Since the program launched nationally in 2008, it has reached more than 55,000 students across the country. This season's featured operas are Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, Handel's Giulio Cesare, and three operas by Verdi: Otello, Aida, and Rigoletto. Each opera was chosen based on a mixture of factors, including the opera's applicability to general curriculum, scheduling with school calendars, and entertainment value. In New York City, students will study all five featured operas, while school districts across the country will choose four titles from the list to focus on.

"We are honored to continue our support of the Metropolitan Opera's HD Live in Schools," said Rena DeSisto, International CSR and Global Arts and culture executive at Bank of America. "The program exposes students, teachers and administrators to internationally renowned singers and riveting productions. Bank of America is proud to help bring opera to classrooms and communities across the United States."

The Met has created a specially-designed HD Live in Schools educator guides for participating teachers and administrators that includes classroom activities, musical highlights, story synopses, accompanying audio clips, post-opera activities, and student resources - tools designed to help students become familiar with the operas before viewing the transmissions.  This season the Met invited representatives from each school district to participate in a three-day teacher conference at the Metropolitan Opera.  The conference focused on strategies to incorporate opera into the classroom, including presentations from a variety of teaching artists, a backstage tour, an opera performance, and interactive workshops.

More information on each opera, as well as a complete list of participating school districts, is available below.

Major funding for HD Live in Schools is made possible by Bank of America, with program support provided through a partnership with the New York City Department of Education.