I had a lot of fun at the Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” screening of Bellini’s I Puritani on Saturday. The performance, starring glamrous opera superstar Anna Netrebko, was broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York into movie theatres across the country and are part of a series of six broadcasts in the program’s inaugural year. Puritani was the second in the series, but the first that I have been able to attend (the first one was a condensed English language version of The Magic Flute, which screened the weekend before and will be rescreened on Jan 23).
The closest movie theatre to LA that was showing the broadcast was in Alhambra (just east of LA in new Asia town, as I call it). So I trekked out there for the 10:30am start time – it was starting in NYC at 1:30pm. I swear I was the youngest person there by at least 10 to 20 years, and felt possibly too under dressed in my t-shirt and jeans. The line was huge since they hadn’t even opened the doors to the theatre yet: the automated ticket kiosk machine was broken and people were confused about picking up tickets they had purchased online. The theatre also didn’t seem quite so prepared for the mass of cranky opera fanatics, waiting to crash through the front doors and yelling at poor fellow patrons who were just trying to figure out which line was which.
It was actually a very interesting group of people there for the screening. Yes, there were plenty of old couples – exactly the way there are if you got to an actual opera performance – and they did account for most of the audience. There were grumpy opera fanatics who busily queued up to where they needed to be and yelled at the poor old folks who couldn’t figure out how to operate the automated Fandango machines. The most interesting story for me, though, was the woman in line behind me – probably in her mid 30s? – who had never been to an opera before. She was just interested in seeing what it was all about after read about this in the newspaper, so she dragged her boyfriend along. It was an easy introduction to the opera for a much lower price, she reasoned.
Once they finally opened the doors, everything turned out fine: the whole scene outside was pretty amusing in retrospect. Even though I was relatively far back in the line, I got a great seat and the digital broadcast went off largely without a hitch. The only thing I can quibble about was the very dim lighting in the picture: the production looked dark and drab, and the contrast in the broadcast image didn’t look as sharp as it should have been. I’m not sure if it was the digital stream, the projector, or the dim lighting in the stage production itself, but it wasn’t quite the HD promised in the series’ title.
That didn’t affect my overall enjoyment of the performance though. The singing and the music was fabulous, but my enjoyment came from more than that: the whole packaging of the program was so much fun. They had introductions with Margaret Juntwaet – the host of the Met’s radio broadcasts – and Beverly Sills (who were both joking around about the silly plot of Puritani). Then there were these really fantastic intermission interviews hosted by – gasp!! – Renée Fleming.
OK so first of all it’s exciting to see Renée Fleming under any circumstances, singing or not (I fell in love with her at her Hollywood Bowl concert a few years ago). But it’s ten times more exciting to see her as a lovely, personable and a great TV hostess and interviewer. She showed up backstage as they were changing the big set of Puritani and interviewed the tech director as the set change went on behind them. It was neat to see the set change on the Met’s massive stage. Then, she ran back to the dressing rooms and gave a great, short interview with Netrebko in her dressing room. Netrebko was so cute, making silly faces and basically enjoying herself through the interview – right in the middle of this enormous, nerve-wracking performance. The intermission documentaries were all also very well produced, so it was entertaining, informative and completely respectful of opera as an artform (ie not lowered to the lowest common denominator). From the perspective of arts marketing, these extras made a brilliant introduction to the opera for everyone seeing opera for the first time. And for those already somewhat familiar with opera – a helluva lot of fun.
Oh yeah and the performance: really wonderful to me. Bellini’s I Puritani is filled to the brim with gorgeous music, so it wasn’t hard to just sit back and really enjoy all three and a half hours of it.
Netrebko looked wonderful on screen. She’s gorgeous, so that makes her very camera friendly. But I’ve had reservations in the past about her voice. She’s not so hot in coloratura or fast moving music – when she sang the first aria in Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet at LA Opera a few years ago my friend and I looked over at each other and flinched – and often, I find her voice sounds like its coming out of her mouth somewhat muffled: creamy perhas, but overly so. She’s much, much better in the dramatic stuff – like the music that comes later in Romeo and Juliet or in Manon, which she performed in skimpy dresses at LA Opera earlier this fall. Since Puritani is filled with coloratura, I was a bit concerned – but she really impressed me with how much she had it under control. You could see her trying hard to control herself in some parts, but it was perfectly lovely in every regard. And her wonderfully naturalistic acting and stunning stage presence made it a fantastic performance.
Other kudos go to Eric Cutler as Arturo for singing those great tenor arias very well, and then especially for John Relyea as Giorgio: a great performance, powerfully delivering a lot of great music like the rousing ‘Suoni la tromba’ at the end of Act II.
The digital transmission came through largely without a hitch: we lost picture once towards the beginning of Act Two, which caused a big old gasp in the audience, but luckily it only lasted a few seconds. There were some bigger problems during the second intermission features but they were all fixed in time for the important parts.
When I got home later Saturday afternoon, I hopped online and immediately bought tickets for the remaining opera broadcasts: The First Emperor next weekend, a new opera by the composer of the film score for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; Eugene Onegin in February, which promises to be a fabulous performance with Renee Fleming; a new production of The Barber of Seville in March directed by Bartlett Scherr, who directed The Light in the Piazza; and Il Trittico in April by Puccini.
I think I’m enjoying these broadcasts more than going to the actual opera. It’s far cheaper, and also the cameras zoom in on the stage and the singers so you can see them and their performances really well on the big screen. In the opera house, all I can afford to buy with my just-graduated-from-college income is the cheap seats way in the top balcony: the whole thing just isn’t as fun there since you have to squint to read the surtitles and the stage is ridiculously far away. And furthermore, with these Met broadcasts come really, truly top notch performances. While the LA Opera is certainly good, the production values and stage direction just isn’t quite up to the same level as the Met. So even though the music and singing isn’t live in the same house, the picture and sound is good enough for the $18 ticket price and I’m getting a lot more out of it with the whole package. I’m so glad the Met is doing this now – they’ve got a new fan out of me.
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