On New Year's Day, the New York-based Metropolitan Opera's performance of Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" will be seen live in theaters across the Midwest, including the Town Plaza Cinema in Cape Girardeau.

The theater is part of the Kerasotes Theatres chain, which inked a deal earlier this year to show productions from National CineMedia (NCM) in its theaters, including live broadcasts of eight live performances by the Met Opera on the big screen.

One opera performance has already taken place, Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette" on Dec. 15.

Attendance was sparse at that performance, said Debbie Deneke of Jackson, who said she didn't see anyone else in the theater during the performance.

Deneke had never really had the chance to see an opera before "Romeo et Juliette." Even though she can't compare what she saw to the live experience, Deneke said her experience was "wonderful."

The reason for the lack of local attendance may be a lack of information. Cape Girardeau has its opera lovers, but one of the most prominent, Barb Herbert, host of KRCU's "Sunday Night at the Opera" program, didn't know about the performances before "Romeo et Juliette."

Others, like Art Wallhausen and Judith Farris, say they have plans to check out at least one of the broadcasts before the season ends next year, though they didn't attend the first opera.

The lack of local attendance at the first performance isn't indicative of what's happening at other Kerasotes theaters, said Kerasotes marketing director Clair Malo. Malo said the chain on the whole is seeing "extremely good attendance," with some houses sold out.

In addition to the Met Opera broadcasts, the National CineMedia deal has also brought concerts by Garth Brooks and Celine Dion into Kerasotes theaters.

This is the second year the Met has done its live broadcasts in high definition, but the first year those performances are available at Kerasotes theaters. This season more than 1 million people are expected to attend the performances, according to Met general manager Peter Gelb.

Malo said that even if attendance isn't up to expectations at Town Plaza for the first few events, the entire season will be shown as planned. Under the deal with NCM gets a percentage of the box office receipts for the performances, Malo said.

Tickets are higher than for a movie -- $22 for adults and $15 for children.

Even at $22, the tickets are a good deal, said Farris, considering a friend once gave her a ticket to see a Met performance that cost $275.

"Here you are seeing it for 20 bucks, and you don't even have to dress up," Farris said.

msanders@semissourian.com

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