It’s been many years since the Metropolitan Opera ended its annual week of performances at Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus. But maybe its “Live in HD” series, which features simulcast broadcasts of New York performances in movie theaters, is the next best thing.

On Saturday, the series continues with “Madama Butterfly,” which can be seen locally at a half-dozen movie complexes around the metro area and at theaters in Mankato and Waite Park. The performance starts at noon.

The Met has staged some 800 versions of Puccini’s beloved opera, including this one by the late Anthony Minghella, which opened its 2006 season. Minghella, who died a year ago, was a British filmmaker and his staging was notable for its sparseness — vast and open — and also for its bustle of antic human traffic. The reprised version opened last fall and Saturday’s performance is its final one.

You can buy tickets on the Met’s website. Prices range from $15 for children to $22 for adults.

The Met announced Monday that Patricia Racette will sing the title role, replacing an ill Cristina Gallardo-Domâs. When the production opened last fall, Racette’s Cio-Cio San was highly praised. Marcello Giordani is singing Pinkerton.

The opera can be seen at Kerasotes Block E Theater on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis; at the AMC theaters in Eden Prairie, Rosedale and Maple Grove, the Eagan 16 Theater on Cliff Road, the Oakdale Cinema, and at the Brooklyn Center 20.

The final two “HD Live” operas of the season will be “La Sonnambula” on March 21 and “La Cenerentola” on May 9.