The pandemic season of «lockdown theatre» (Gemini et al. 2021) had a disruptive impact on the material and evenemential procedures of production of performances, and on the way they are received by audiences, “moved” from the physical space of theatres to the dematerialized space of electronic media. In this inedited context, opera has strengthened its natural vocation for multimodality, in the sign of a «phenomenology of streaming» (Galla 2020) that has transformed the condition of liveness of musical and performing theatre. Through a targeted reconnaissance of the most recent and significant experiments in the mediatisation of opera performance, including the streaming opera programs introduced by musical institutions (the Teatro Digitale of the Opera di Roma; #operaonthesofa of the Regio di Torino, etc.), and the original creations conceived for online/television fruition (Il barbiere di Siviglia and La traviata by Mario Martone; A riveder le stelle by Davide Livermore; Il crepuscolo dei sogni by Johannes Erath; Alienati by Teatro Coccia), the paper reflects on the gradients of digital liveness of opera on video, both live and deferred; by relating the epistemological premises on liveness with the distinctive spectatorial posture required by opera performances, divided between «mimesis and abstraction» (Gallarati 2007) and between the different levels of audience reception, which the current phenomenology of streaming is clearly redefining.