THE Metropolitan Opera’s La Sonnambula will be screened live from the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, at the Minehead Regal on Tuesday, October 21, at 6.45 pm.

Following Met triumphs in Roméo et Juliette, La Traviata, and Lucia di Lammermoor, Nadine Sierra scales another peak of the soprano repertoire as Amina, who sleepwalks her way into audiences’ hearts in Bellini’s poignant tale of love lost and found.

In his new production, director Rolando Villazón retains the opera’s original setting in the Swiss Alps but uses its sleepwalking plot to explore the emotional and psychological valleys of the mind.

The opera is sung in Italian with English subtitles and the running time is 150 minutes including two intervals.

The story concerns Amina, a Swiss village girl engaged to a fellow villager.

All is happy in their pastoral paradise until the arrival of a mysterious stranger whose admiration for Amina makes her boyfriend jealous.

This is made even worse when Amina is discovered in the stranger’s room in the local inn late at night.

The situation is eventually happily resolved when it is found that Amina is an innocent sleepwalker.

The opera’s first performance was in 1831 and Joan Sutherland is among the divas who have taken the role of Amina, which is renowned for its difficulty.

It was seen at the Royal Opera House in 2011.

The phrase “I did not believe I would see you fade so soon, oh flower,” from Amina’s final aria is inscribed on composer Vincenzo Bellini’s tomb.

Tickets cost £15.50 (Film Society members/Regal Theatre Friends £14.00, Students/ES40s £13, under 14s £10).

Numbered seats may be booked in advance online and at the Regal box office (01643 706430) between 9.30 am and 12 noon Monday to Saturday. The Regal bar will be open for refreshments from 6.15 pm.