Booking for the Met Opera Live in HD 2014-15 cinema season is about to open at Picturehouse cinemas.
Members' tickets can be bought from 16 March (depending on cinema) with public booking starting a week or so later. Check the Picturehouse site for a full list of booking dates by location.
Prices are: Live screenings £30, Encore screenings £20, with £7 off each price for members. Annual membership cost varies; in London it's typically £40, and includes 3 free tickets for standard shows (not including Met Live and similar events).
Even with the members' discount Picturehouse is not quite the cheapest deal in London (see here for alternatives), but it still (oddly) costs less than the grant-aided BFI and Barbican, which have not yet announced when they will open for booking.
The Season (Live Shows):
Saturday 11 October, 5.55
Verdi’s Macbeth
Saturday 18 October, 5.55
Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro – New Production
Saturday 1 November, 4.55
Bizet’s Carmen
Saturday 15 November, 5.55
Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer – Met Premiere
Saturday 13 December, 5.00
Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Saturday 17 January, 5.55
Lehar’s The Merry Widow – New Production
Saturday 31 January, 5.55
Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffman
Saturday 14 February, 5.30
Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta + Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle – New Production
Saturday 14 March, 4.55
Rossini’s La Donna del Lago – Met Premiere
Saturday 25 April, 5.30
Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana + Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci – New Production
The Barbican think their booking will be around the first week of May. Oddly, in New York itself, it doesn't open until August.
Posted by: SJT | 13 March 2014 at 02:06 AM
Off topic, but readers might be interested that yet another batch of L'Ormindo tickets have been released today:
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/theatre/whats-on/sam-wanamaker-playhouse/lormindo
Posted by: Nik | 14 March 2014 at 01:36 PM
Cineworld is much cheaper. £30 is quite a burden if one wants to watch most of the season.
Posted by: J M | 15 March 2014 at 03:46 AM
Also, at least at the Cineworld branches near me, there is absolutely no need to book months in advance. I could turn up on the day and get a seat, I only book online (maybe a week or two ahead) for convenience and to get the discount.
Posted by: Miriam | 15 March 2014 at 10:49 AM
There's a further 10% off at Cineworld if you sign up to My Cineworld, and they do seem very good at not filling your inbox with irrelevant offers and marketing - none of this "People who booked for "Parsifal" also booked for "The LEGO Movie" nonsense *cough*Amazon*cough*
Posted by: Deborah | 15 March 2014 at 12:20 PM
What they are not very good at in the nearest branch to me is getting the starting time right. For Prince Igor they originally advertised it as starting at 15.00 instead of 17.00, but did send out correcting emails to those who had booked.
For Werther this week they originally advertised it as 17.55, presumably not realising the clocks changed in the US last weekend which made the time an hour earlier here. Although they corrected this on the website earlier in the week they did not send out any email, with the result that a lot of people were late, some missing nearly all of Act 1.
Posted by: Miriam | 15 March 2014 at 09:40 PM