Putting opera’s digital revolution to the test
Our critic saw the same production in-person and at the movies. Only, it wasn’t the same.
Semantically speaking, opera-goers fall into two distinct categories. About half say they go to “hear” opera. The rest prefer to say they go “see” it.
Both verbs imply the same action and together they underscore just how sublime opera can be; no art form offers a better combination of thrills for both eyes and ears— especially when it’s delivered with the quality of a company like New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, the country’s best.
But that simple word choice reflects awider debate over what makes opera so popular: Is it the singing or the spectacle that matters most? Can a bad staging be good if the soprano’s high notes still tingle your spine? Or is an evening at the opera house ruined if the sets are shabby and the acting flat?
The Met’s own offerings don’t settle the question but they shed some light. This year, the company is celebrating its 10th season of beaming live broadcasts of its productions to movie theaters across theworld. This has been nothing short of a revolution for the form, overhauling in a decade four centuries of local, opera-going tradition.
For folks who go to “see” opera, the “Met in HD” has been a windfall. About 2.5 million people attend the broadcasts each year, now presented simultaneously in 11 time zones spread across 70 countries. In Denver, 11 theaters offer
the Saturday morning presentations, up from three when things started in 2006.
Movie audiences get to experience things in-person audiences can’t, and the extent to which that is true became abundantly clear last weekend when I attended the Met’s new “The Pearl Fishers” live at the Denver Pavilions 15. I went to an earlier presentation of the same production live at the company’s home in Lincoln Center the week before.
I had a killer seat at Lincoln Center, Row P in the orchestra, but still I missed so many details in director Penny Woolcock’s version of Bizet’s tale about a virgin priestess brought to a remote island in ancient times and charged with praying for good weather while avoiding carnal temptations (which, of course, she doesn’t).
I didn’t catch the beautiful henna tattoos on the hands and feet of lead soprano Diana Damrau. I didn’t discern the hateful glances between baritone Mariusz Kwiecien and tenor Matthew Polenzani as they compete for the priestess’ love. Thanks to close-ups and agile camera work of the HD broadcast, I was able to notice the impeccable hems on costumes, the incredible attention to detail in the jewelry and props. The lens helped focus my attention on the action at hand; it told me where to look and who to watch.
And, unlike my New York experience, I didn’t have a very tall guy with a cowlick sitting in Row O and blocking my view of the lusty love scene that takes place on the stage floor.
Now to be fair, I did have a cranky, older dude sitting next to me at the Pavilions, whining over joint pain every time he shuffled about and munching loudly on a bag of contraband peanuts he smuggled past the usher. That would not have happened at the actual Met.
That is to say, opera experiences can be fickle and it does matter who you spend the event with, and the audience at the cinema was, at times, infuriating. Unlike the company’s home, movie theaters allow late seating, a perfect opening for a clueless couple to enter the dark, sold-out Pavilions 20 minutes late, just at the start of the aria “Au Fond Du Temple Saint.” The greatest duet in all of opera was mashed up with a repeated refrain of “Is this seat taken?”
There was more to tolerate at the movies than the occasional lout. Despite the ample close-ups the production felt distant in several ways.
Woolcock’s opening scene for this production— the first “Pearl Fishers” at the Met in a century — was among the most memorable I have ever witnessed. Pearl divers, on invisible ropes, slowly descend from the six-story ceiling, gracefully waving their arms and legs as if they were swimming. A projector follows them down to the floor, beaming air bubbles from their mouths. Pure stage magic.
Movies, by contrast, use magic as if was spare change. At the Pavilions, the opening was actually a little boring, just another special effect on the big screen.
There was one more thing, and it’s notable to those who go to “hear” an opera. The singers and musicians sounded much better in person, richer, clearer, earthier. I would say all three principals actually gave superior performances the second time; they’d had a few more outings under their belt, gotten decent reviews from the critics and their confidence was high.
Still, they sounded more human in New York, more vulnerable, closer. The difference, no doubt, was amplification, The Met doesn’t use it, the movie theaters, hundreds and thou- sands of miles away from the source, have no choice but to harness the singing and playing in wires, bounce it off satellites and deliver it through speakers. The Pavilions has terrific speakers, but it is what it is.
There are other benefits to both venues and it depends how you spin them. I could order a gin and tonic in New York, but itwas $18 before tip. The movie theater offered interviews with the show’s stars at intermission, though watching them break character and mug for the camera wrecked the continuity of the art.
Lincoln Center is a fabulous piece of architecture, but just try parking nearby. And, frankly, it goes against nature to see a conductor’s face as the broadcast, with its multiple viewpoints, allowed; the backs of their heads are, and always will be, quite enough.
Neither venue earned an edge. Both are live, which means the anything-can-happen excitement prevails and that’s the real value. If something, or someone, goes wrong, there’s no covering it up.
In the end, I got a lot from “Pearl Fishers” and felt more than a little spoiled. We live in a good age, it seems, where fans of the digital and real can have it how they want it; where those who “hear” and those who “see” can regularly get their fill.