The Met in HD series at Palace Amusement cinemas will continue on Saturday, January 5, with Les Troyens at Carib 5 and an encore performance of Aida on Sunday, January 6.

The spectacular Aida was hailed by Jamaican aficionados who turned out en masse on December 15 to view 'the grandest of grand operas', which closed the half season of the Met in HD in magnificent style.

Fans are in for a veritable treat of great performances in 2013 with Les Troyens, Maria Stuarda, Rigoletto, Parisfal, Francesca da Rimini and Giulio Cesare.

The Metropolitan Opera's general manager, Peter Gelb, has led the revolutionary worldwide outreach.

Peter Gelb's career has followed a singular arc that began with his teenage years as an usher at the Metropolitan Opera and led to his appointment, in August 2006, as the storied company's 16th general manager.

Having recently completed his sixth season at the helm of the Met, Gelb has overseen the launch of a number of initiatives aimed at revitalising opera and connecting it to a wider audience since the start of his tenure. One of his fundamental goals has been to recruit the world's great theatre directors to enhance the theatricality of the Met's productions and complement the extraordinary musical standards established by music director James Levine.

more engagements

Gelb is also committed to securing more engagements each season from the world's top singers.

One of the most successful and trailblazing of his new initiatives is The Met: Live in HD, a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning series of live performance transmissions shown in high definition in movie theatres. The series has sold more than 10 million tickets since its inception in December 2006, and in the 2011-12 season was seen on more than 1,900 screens in more than 60 countries across six continents.

Gelb has also made a priority of revitalising the repertory with new productions of both classic operas and modern masterpieces. Since he took over with the 2006-07 season, the Met has presented 40 new stagings by some of the world's greatest theatre, film, and opera directors, including Patrice Chéreau, Willy Decker, Richard Eyre, Michael Grandage, Nicholas Hytner, William Kentridge, Robert Lepage, Des McAnuff, David McVicar, the late Anthony Minghella, Mark Morris, Jack O'Brien, Peter Sellars, Bartlett Sher, Zhang Yimou, and Mary Zimmerman, among others.

Other initiatives launched by Gelb include a commissioning programme for new operas; free dress rehearsals for the public; a free live transmission of the opening-night performance on to giant screens at Times Square and Lincoln Center Plaza; and the Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Rush Ticket programme which offers select orchestra seats for weekday and weekend performances at dramatically reduced prices. He has also introduced the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, a contemporary art exhibition space in the Met lobby that presents new work connected to Met productions by such artists as John Currin, William Kentridge, Julie Mehretu, Elizabeth Peyton, Julian Schnabel, Dana Schutz, and others.

Gelb's extensive and varied experiences in the field of classical music has prepared him for the considerable challenge of overseeing both the artistic and administrative aspects of one of the largest performing arts institutions in the world. As an award-winning producer of films, recordings, radio broadcasts, telecasts, concert events, operas, and festivals, he worked with many of the world's leading artists prior to becoming Met's general manager. Among those Gelb has worked wth are Vladimir Horowitz, Herbert von Karajan, Mstislav Rostropovich, Luciano Pavarotti, and Plácido Domingo.

leadership role

Under Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera has once again taken a leadership role among opera houses and other arts organisations, not only in the US, but around the world, providing a model for other groups with its groundbreaking artistic and public initiatives.

Gelb today shares his message regularly through keynote addresses and discussions at conferences in the US and abroad, including at Harvard University, Yale University, MIT, New York University, the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, Showa University in Japan, the European Opera Conference in Paris, the Chautauqua Institution, the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, the American Academy in Berlin, and the MIDEM conference in Cannes.

He has received honorary doctorates from Hamilton College and from the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York.