The Met in HD
Phoenix Picturehouses
Introduction
Many generations of radio listeners have tuned in to the Saturday matinée transmissions from the New York Metropolitan Opera, ‘Live from the Met’. Under its dynamic management led by General Manager Peter Gelb, the Met launched in 2007 ‘Met Opera: live in HD’ whereby audiences in cinemas around the world are able to view live performances in high-definition digital video transmission. The first of these was the much-criticised truncated version of The Magic Flute shown as Christmas entertainment; the second, Eugene Onegin, was shown in the Phoenix Cinema in Oxford on 24 February. I attended this with the intention of reviewing it in relation to how near it came to or far it was from reproducing the experience of being present in the opera house, merely adding a visual element to the radio broadcast.
I was totally bowled over. This is a completely new way to experience opera. It is neither just a film show with a superior music score nor a music drama accompanied by visual imagery but a true synthesis of both elements. On the other hand, it is not cinema: the words are sung, the action confined to a stage set; it is not opera: the images are two-dimensional, the sound reproduced. But whatever the analysis, one was totally engrossed, with the ability to view the singers in close up and to read the text without having to raise one’s eyes while hearing the glorious music. The peripherals added to the enjoyment: the camera roving round the auditorium and orchestra before the start, the ability to study the conductor during the overture, the backstage tour, interviews and rehearsal scenes during the intermission (but no Met Opera Quiz).
Since 2007 I have seen twenty- six operas up to the 2011-2012 season which are reviewed here. It is now an established way to experience opera viewed by hundreds of thousands n movie-theatres around the world. Over the seasons the presentation for the audience has developed and matured in professionalism. Rarely now do we see productions where the cameras linger on close-ups of the singers, isolated from the dramatic context, viewing their tonsils and perspiring foreheads. Three different approaches have emerged, each appropriate for different operas. First, at one extreme, is the straight filming of the stage performance for grand operas which are primarily vehicles for great voices with dramatic development secondary .An example is Anna Bolena . Secondly, the majority, where one is aware that it is a filmed performance but the freedom of the camera to roam around the set and vary from long shot to close up enhances the drama of the plot, of which good examples area , Simone Boccanegra, Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Thirdly is the class I have called cine opera where the memory is of a purely cinematographic experience of which the supreme example is Rodelinda, followed by La Fanciulla del Ouest, Nixon in China, Thaïs. Here the medium has come of age.
Two are double reviews: ‘Live at the Met, Live from the Met ‘compares the experience of La Sonnambula in the opera house and in the cinema, while ‘Stage and Screen’ compares the Met in HD with a live performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden of Der Rosenkavalier. Wagner has not fared well. An early transmission of Tristan und Isolde introduced purely cinematographic elements – split-screen and framed images – wisely not seen again. The Ring Cycle (reviews of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre) exaggerated the incompatibility of the over-elaborate and self-indulgent staging with the interactions of the characters.
I wish to express my gratitude to Ken Howard and Marti Sohl and to the Metropolitan Opera for permission to reproduce photos from the Met Archive. These must not be printed without permission from the photographers
I was totally bowled over. This is a completely new way to experience opera. It is neither just a film show with a superior music score nor a music drama accompanied by visual imagery but a true synthesis of both elements. On the other hand, it is not cinema: the words are sung, the action confined to a stage set; it is not opera: the images are two-dimensional, the sound reproduced. But whatever the analysis, one was totally engrossed, with the ability to view the singers in close up and to read the text without having to raise one’s eyes while hearing the glorious music. The peripherals added to the enjoyment: the camera roving round the auditorium and orchestra before the start, the ability to study the conductor during the overture, the backstage tour, interviews and rehearsal scenes during the intermission (but no Met Opera Quiz).
Since 2007 I have seen twenty- six operas up to the 2011-2012 season which are reviewed here. It is now an established way to experience opera viewed by hundreds of thousands n movie-theatres around the world. Over the seasons the presentation for the audience has developed and matured in professionalism. Rarely now do we see productions where the cameras linger on close-ups of the singers, isolated from the dramatic context, viewing their tonsils and perspiring foreheads. Three different approaches have emerged, each appropriate for different operas. First, at one extreme, is the straight filming of the stage performance for grand operas which are primarily vehicles for great voices with dramatic development secondary .An example is Anna Bolena . Secondly, the majority, where one is aware that it is a filmed performance but the freedom of the camera to roam around the set and vary from long shot to close up enhances the drama of the plot, of which good examples area , Simone Boccanegra, Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Thirdly is the class I have called cine opera where the memory is of a purely cinematographic experience of which the supreme example is Rodelinda, followed by La Fanciulla del Ouest, Nixon in China, Thaïs. Here the medium has come of age.
Two are double reviews: ‘Live at the Met, Live from the Met ‘compares the experience of La Sonnambula in the opera house and in the cinema, while ‘Stage and Screen’ compares the Met in HD with a live performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden of Der Rosenkavalier. Wagner has not fared well. An early transmission of Tristan und Isolde introduced purely cinematographic elements – split-screen and framed images – wisely not seen again. The Ring Cycle (reviews of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre) exaggerated the incompatibility of the over-elaborate and self-indulgent staging with the interactions of the characters.
I wish to express my gratitude to Ken Howard and Marti Sohl and to the Metropolitan Opera for permission to reproduce photos from the Met Archive. These must not be printed without permission from the photographers