Live at the Met, the Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning series of live, high definition opera transmissions to theaters around the world, continues its 2013-14 season at the 1891 Fredonia Opera House a week from today at 12 p.m., with Alexander Borodin’s epic Russian masterpiece, Prince Igor, in its first Metropolitan Opera performance since 1917.

“We’re very excited to be participating in our third full season of Live at the Met broadcasts,” notes Opera House Executive Director Rick Davis. “The audiences, while small, have been extremely enthusiastic about this series. There’s just something exhilarating about seeing an opera production presented by one of the world’s foremost companies and seeing it right here in Fredonia at the same time audiences in NYC are seeing it live. We encourage people to come see what all the fuss is about!”

Prince Igor, famous for its Polovtsian Dances, is an acclaimed new production by director Dmitri Tcherniakov in his Met debut. It stars Ildar Abdrazakov as the heroic title character, a 12th-century ruler who defended Russia against invading Polovtsian forces. Gianandrea Noseda, a specialist in Russian music, will conduct a new edition of the opera left unfinished by Borodin at the time of his death in 1887 which has been specially created for the Met production.

The cast also includes Ukrainian soprano Oksana Dyka in her Met debut as Igor’s wife, Yaroslavna, Anita Rachvelishvili as the fiery Polovtsian princess Konchakovna, Russian tenor Sergey Semishkur in his Met debut as Igor’s son, Vladimir Igorevich, Mikhail Petrenko as Yaroslavna’s brother, Prince Galitsky, and Stefan Koc’n as Khan Konchak, leader of the Polovtsian forces. The opera runs approximately four and one-half hours with two intermissions.

Live at the Met telecasts are now shown in more than 2,000 theaters in 64 countries, making the Met the only arts institution with an ongoing global art series of this scale. The Met was the first arts company to experiment with this type of broadcast, beginning on a modest scale in 2006 and growing every season since then, with more than 10 million tickets sold to date.

Met opera stars serve as hosts for the series, conducting live interviews with cast members, crew and production teams, and introducing the popular behind-the-scenes features; altogether the worldwide audience is given an unprecedented look at what goes into the staging of an opera at one of the world’s great houses.

Individual tickets to each of the operas in the season are $20, ($18 Opera House members, $15 students). The Opera House also offers a flexible subscription consisting of eight tickets that can be used however the patron wants one at a time to eight different operas, all at once for eight people, or anything in between. It is $142. Tickets may be purchased in person at the Opera House Box Office or by phone at 679-1891, Tuesday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. Tickets may be purchased online anytime at www.fredopera.org.

The remaining 2013-14 Live at the Met season operas include: Jules Massenet’s Werther on March 15; Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme on April 5; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte on April 26; and Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola on May 10.

Live at the Met opera broadcasts are made possible by Dr. James M. and Marcia Merrins, who funded the purchase of the satellite transmission and projection equipment used in the series.

Chautauqua County’s only performing arts center presenting its own programming year-round, the 1891 Fredonia Opera House is a member-supported not-for-profit organization located in Village Hall in downtown Fredonia. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.fredopera.org.