(Credit: Deutsche Oper Berlin / Simon Pauly)

Deutsche Oper Berlin has announced that it will live stream Zandonai’s opera “Francesca da Rimini” on March 14.

The opera house hoped that it would be allowed to present the opera for live audiences, but the German federal government is preparing to extend the majority of lockdown measures until March 28, 2021.

The opera will star American soprano Sara Jakubiak in the title role, Jonathan Tetelman as Paolo il Bello, Alexandra Hutton as Samaritana, and Samuel Dale Johnson in the role of Ostasio. The cast also includes Ivan Inverardi, Charles Workman, Meechot Marrero, Mané Galoyan, Arianna Manganello, Karis Tucker, Amira Elmadfa, Andrew Dickinson, Dean Murphy, Patrick Cook, and Thomas Lehman. Carlo Rizzi will conduct the production by Christof Loy.

Set design is by Johannes Leiacker, while Klaus Bruns is responsible for costumes.

German opera houses have been closed since early November 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. German federal government and Prime Ministers of German federal states are hesitant to relax the measures of a hard lockdown due to ongoing concerns over the new SARS-CoV-2 variants that have been spreading throughout Europe in the last three months.

The live stream will be available on takt1.de on March 14, 2021 at 7 p.m. CET. The recording will be available for free on VoD for three days after the premiere.