La Fanciulla del West (Metropolitan Opera Live in HD)

Storyhouse Cinema is bringing the Metropolitan Opera's La Fanciulla del West to Chester on Tuesday 26 January 2027, at 6pm. It's a screening of the Met's production, filmed on 23 January, so you're seeing it just a few days after it was captured on stage in New York. The whole thing runs about 3 hours 15 minutes, with an interval in the middle.

Puccini's drama of the Wild West is back in a new staging by the British director Richard Jones, and it's the company's first new production of La Fanciulla in more than 30 years. Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts, with soprano Sondra Radvanovsky making her role debut as Minnie, tenor SeokJong Baek as the bandit, and baritone Christopher Maltman as the lawman. The story is a classic Western—outlaws, a frontier town, and a love triangle—set to one of Puccini's most atmospheric scores.

The screening is part of the Met's Live in HD series, which Storyhouse runs under its Stage & Exhibition on Screen strand. It's the same slot that brings National Theatre Live, Royal Ballet & Opera, Exhibition on Screen, and the Berliner Philharmoniker to the city, so if you've been along to those, you know the format: a full-scale stage production projected onto the cinema screen.

Tickets are £19.05 for members, £21 for non-members, and £14.55 for under-16s and Young Storyhouse Card holders. It starts at 6pm on Tuesday 26 January, with the interval breaking up the three-plus hours.