The Vienna State Opera has announced both its 2014-15 season and the launch on an online HD streaming service. Among the 250 performances of 50 different operas during the season, there will be six new productions: Mozart’s Idomeneo (directed by Kasper Holten and conducted by Christoph Eschenbach),Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina (Lev Dodin/Semyon Bychkov), Verdi’s Rigoletto with Simon Keenlyside in the title-role (Pierre Audi/Franz Welser-Möst), Richard Strauss’s Elektrawith Nina Stemme (Uwe Eric Laufenberg/Welser-Möst), Donizetti’sDon Pasquale with Juan Diego Flórez (Jesús López-Cobos/Irina Brook) and Thomas Adès’s The Tempest (Robert Lepage/Adès). During the 2014-14 season, 45 performances will be broadcast in HD quality to global audiences via an App, accessible on your PC/Mac, tablet or phone. A partnership with Samsung has resulted in the Staatsoper being equipped with nine HD cameras which will offer two streams that viewers can switched between: a single, fixed shot of the stage and an edited, ‘produced’ stream employing different angles. The performances will be viewable in a 72-hour window to allow for audiences in different countries to watch at a time that is convenient to them. The libretto and, for some performances the score, can be accessed on your tablet or phone simultaneously allowing the filmed picture to remain free of subtitles. The streams will be available via a number of payment packages that have been optimised for ease of use – a Single Live ticket (€14), a ‘Smart’ Live ticket (eight live performances for €88 working out at €11 each) and Premium Live (basically everything for €320). Some classic Staatsoper productions will be viewable in the site’s Videothèque, but there are no plans to archive performances filmed this coming season. On May 7, Verdi’s Nabucco with Plácido Domingo in the title-role will be broadcast in UHD (Ultra-High Definition), making it the first global UHD broadcast (well ahead of the FIFA World Cup this summer!). For full information visit staatsoperlive.com [asa]B00H6OW38U[/asa]