La Traviata will be streamed live and free of charge on Friday from the stage of Madrid’s Teatro Real

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

La Traviata, Verdi’s opera about the doomed love of a courtesan and a young man, will be streamed live and free of charge worldwide from the stage of Madrid’s Teatro Real on Friday, opening an EU-backed programme intended to make opera more accessible.

The Opera Platform (www.theoperaplatform.eu) is a three-year project with an overall budget of almost €4m (US$4.5m), of which about half comes from the EU’s cultural budget.

“The Opera Platform is an online platform for the promotion and enjoyment of opera. It is designed to appeal equally to those who already love opera and to those who may be tempted to try it for the first time,” a press statement said.

It said internet users throughout the world would be able to watch the simulcast and future live transmissions from the stages of 15 participating European opera companies in 12 countries.

There will be on average about one live transmission a month, which will be available for viewing on the website for six months. Subtitles are provided in English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish.

The site will also offer documentaries, opera archive materials and highlights of productions throughout Europe.

The website is being offered by the EU’s Creative Europe programme in collaboration with Opera Europa, which is an association of 155 opera companies and festivals, the cultural channel Arte and the 15 opera companies.

Future productions include Karol Szymanowski’s Krol Roger (King Roger) from Covent Garden in London and Richard Wagner’s Gotterdammerung from the Vienna Staatsoper.

Also on tap are Jean Sibelius’s Kullervo from the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, Arturs Maskats’s Valentina by the Latvian National Opera in Riga and Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, from the Aix-en-Provence festival in France.