Folks, if you have somehow made it through the soon-concluding New York Met season without seeing one of their Hi-Def broadcasts -- and you can't blame me for that, as I've been their biggest fanboy on this list -- then you probably also missed today's premiere of The Audition, a documentary on the Met's National Council Auditions. I'm sorry to report that the Met is advertising this as a one-day event, so there apparently will not be an encore performance, unlike the case with their regular H-D broadcasts. The Audition, produced by Susan Froemke, followed the semifinalists of the competition through the final night and judging. If you thought the word "butterfly" refers only to the Puccini opera, you should have seen how these young people prepared for the pressure of appearing at the Met. When she first walked on to the stage, one of the contestants could only say, "Holy Moley." And then she had to sing and be judged. This was a fabulous film, and I wish it would be broadcast again. Or even made available. The previous documentary by Susan Froemke, "In Rehearsal: A New Butterfly for the Met," is not on Netflix or Amazon. Is it available anywhere? There's only one opera left in this year's series of H-D broadcasts, Rossini's La Cenerentola, with Elina Garanca. As was the case with every H-D opera I tried to attend this year, the nearby theater was sold out and I had to go a theater about 10 miles away. A small price to pay. Next season's Met H-D broadcast season looks fabulous: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hdevents/index.aspx?id=8334 Mitch Friedfeld *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html