The Met in HD

[MSFixR]

The Metropolitan Opera of New York began broadcasting operas in high definition video and Dobly Digital 5.1 sound last year to selected theaters in the USA. This year the number of theaters has been greatly expanded in the USA and includes theaters in Great Britian, Australia, Canada, Germany, and other countries. Eight operas will be broadcast this year including Gounod's Romeo et Juliette with Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna in the title roles, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, and Franco Zeffirelli's production of Puccini's La Boheme.
The Met has been broadcasting opera live on the radio on Saturday afternoons for over seventy years. These live broadcasts mark a milestone in opera performance and availability. Visit the Met web site for more information.

[MSFixR]

Stupendous, breathtaking, fantastic, those are the words I use to describe the first satellite broadcast by The Metropolitan Opera to hundreds of theaters worldwide. The picture quality was as good as any film and the sound quality was Dobly Digital 5.1, the same great motion picture quality you are used to. The opera was Charles Gounod's Romeo et Juliette with Roberto Alagna and Anna Netrebko in the title roles and conducted by Plácido Domingo. Gounod's opera is very sensual. Both the the leads are exceptional operatic singers. Netrebko in particular just blows you away with her power and range. I didn't hear a mediocre singer in the entire three and a half hour opera - even Romeo's page was fantastic. Apparently this premier performance was so successful (the auditorium appeared to be two-thirds full) that an encore performance (on tape) is scheduled for tomorrow. One advantage over attending a live performance at The Met other than journeying to New York and paying somewhere around $100 instead of $22 for a seat is that the video gives the viewer different views of the performance including close-ups one would never get in the live setting. During scene changes and intermission, the camera took you back stage to watch the stage crew in action or to interview the conductor and lead singers.
If you have never been to an opera, this would be a very good and inexpensive way of experiencing this art form and the next opera, Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, on Tuesday, January 1, would be an excellent way to begin. It is light and uncomplicated, the music is fabulously tuneful, and the running time is relatively short at two and a half hours. Why not give it a try; you never know, it might grow on you. For more information see: The Met - HD Live

[Ophelia]

Wow...that sounds great! The website seems down right now, I'll try again later.

[SilverSpoon]

An opera does not need to be in HD at this time when HD is a special thing. In fact, only movies and TV shows (real TV shows, not news broadcasts or sports games) need to be in HD. When SD dies out completely, then everything else can be in HD.

[Plastic Flute]

I get HD confused with Home Depot.

[MSFixR]

Originally Posted by Plastic Flute

I get HD confused with Home Depot.

Why would the Metropolitan Opera . . . Oh never mind.

[MSFixR]

Did any one else see the Met broadcast of Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut today??? Finnish phenomenon Karita Mattila was fantastic. Forty-seven years old and she's doing splits on stage! And tenor Marcello Giordani, this is like the fourth opera he is in this season. Conductor James Levine looked like he was going to have a coronary - he puts everything into his conducting (over 2100 operas at the Met and counting).

[MissyO]

I wish. I need a bit of culture in my life right now. Think I'm gonna go see a ballet or opera live sometime soon. It'll be a first for me. Well, since I was a kid, anyhow.

[MSFixR]

Here you go, Missy. http://www.themetinaustralia.info/
It's showing at the Chauvel Cinema, Paddington.
Puccini's Manon Lescaut which I just saw is on Saturday, March 1st and Sunday, March 2nd
Puccini's La Boheme which I've seen many, many times, is showing on Saturday, April 19th and Sunday, April 20th.
I recommend both but especially the latter.
This has become a very popular event in St. Louis. Today's presentation of Manon was almost a sell out and I expect La Boheme to SRO.

[MissyO]

Hahaha, I clicked on the link before I read through your post, and chose La Boheme!

I'm definitely going to see that one. Just quietly, its near the woman behind the Missy's real birthday, so I'm booking that as my present.

Thank you so much for finding that for me, Fixr!

[MSFixR]

I hope you have a very enjoyable birthday present.
This is the Franco Zefferelli production of the opera which is simply marvelous. The opera itself is the most popular by far. My favorite tunes from the opera are

"O Soave Fanciulla"
and

"Quando m'en vo" (Musetta's Waltz).

[Moshe..]

The screenings are only going to be fun for established opera-freaks. Opera is a little emotionally inaccessible for people who didn’t grow up with it. Most people find it impossible to enjoy at first. It’s not a hollywood movie! Like to watch a whole opera on tv, you either have to have an amazing attention span or be an established opera-fan already. I can’t watch opera on tv! My dad loves it, but only because he’s been totally obsessed his entire life, he's a weird person.

If you’re a beginner, you might have to treat opera like an exotic adventure to another continent. It’s like a holiday! It’s a bizarre foreign landscape, language, culture, everything. It probably all seems total nonsense to you at first. Some fat people jumping around on a stage, it’s not very normal behaviour. ONly once you get used to the language, geography, and customs, it starts to make sense, and then you see it’s beautiful. It reveals aspects of our existence nothing else can. You will see aspects of the soul no other art form can reveal. It’s the vocalisation of the inner life, and it’s also an accentuation of the inner world. The conventional narrative is lead on the stage, it's the world as we know it, something which exists within a story, society, a human body, a physical setting. And yet the true reality, the truly important thing, the emotional reality, is expressed through music, melody and harmony, and only contingently fixed to individual characters. The musical emotion is projected through the theatre, while the physical basis upon which the emotional life is supposedly supervenient, the figure on stage, appears trivial and dimunitive, a helpless musical vessel. You see in normal life we're led to believe that our emotion is supervenient on physical reality, but really it's the other way round. And without our consciousness, the universe is empty, nothingness. When he opens his eyes, man creates the world. It’s strangely difficult to motivate people to open their eyes to the beautiful things. Maybe it helps to remember that opera was the soul of europe, and will always be the soul of italy. It wasn’t just something for the aristocracy. There are lots of famous stories of little shoe-shiners & shop-girls who would almost starve themselves to death saving up for a ticket to la scala, it was like a ticket to paradise for them, a trip to the stars. The modern italian language has even evolved for the sake of opera, lots of grammar is there just to make it easy to sing. It’s a horrible language to write. In germany, wagner was treated more like religion than entertainment, and thousands of people have lived entirely for, and understood their lives only through, his opera. And in paris too, so much of the city, the theatres, the avenues, the restaurants, ect, were built around the operatic scene. It was huge.

To be honest, I never liked opera growing up. I liked going out, the historical-feeling, dressing up, and the theatres, and just the glittery atmosphere. My favourite thing was getting ice-cream afterwards, and drinking lots of ice-coffee. I only started liking the operas themselves very recently. The best way to get into it all is to first just enjoy the night-out, and the ice cream. Also if you want get into the music, you shouldn’t buy cds of the full opera, it’s too boring to listen to unless you already know the story and the words and have memories of the magical nights out. The full opera cds are just for established fans. If you’re a beginner, buy the super cheap highlights cds. You can listen to them in the shower, you don’t need to know the stories. Listening to kitchy cheapo opera compilations in the shower is the first step. http://www.amazon.com/Best-Puccini-G...3282042&sr=8-4
And it's sooooo important to learn the story before you go out.

hope you have a very enjoyable birthday present.
This is the Franco Zefferelli production of the opera which is simply marvelous. The opera itself is the most popular by far. My favorite tunes from the opera are

zeffirelli is wonderful for unashamed decadence and kitsch. It's because he learnt everything from his boyfriend luchino visconti, the greatest opera director in history. And also one of the best film makers, horse breeders, dress designers and painters. He's from a famously evil family! His father was a total monster I think, just look at his mostache. Youtube is amazing, the obscure & strange bbc documentaries we now have access to. And 6:30 minutes in, it's bruckner's 7th, wow my favourite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w33wA...eature=related

[Moshe..]

Oh i didnt see you posted a anna netrebko video, i love her. She is the sexiest fat girl in the world, definitely!

[darko.]

**** me!

[MissyO]

Originally Posted by Moshe..

Oh i didnt see you posted a anna netrebko video, i love her. She is the sexiest fat girl in the world, definitely!

She's healthy, not fat you bum! Size 12 is not fat, you just have unrealistic standards, man!

And my Gawd she is gorgeous. I want her hair.

[MSFixR]

Originally Posted by Moshe..

The full opera cds are just for established fans. If you’re a beginner, buy the super cheap highlights cds. You can listen to them in the shower, you don’t need to know the stories. Listening to kitchy cheapo opera compilations in the shower is the first step. http://www.amazon.com/Best-Puccini-G...3282042&sr=8-4
And it's sooooo important to learn the story before you go out.

I agree that buying the full opera cd or video would not be a wise investment for the neophyte. On the other hand, have you ever heard of the Brussels Phiharmonic or the CSSR Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)? The Met has been broadcast on many radio stations for 70+ years and its free. Or invest 3-4 hours of your time and see the live or taped broadcast in many venues around the world.
The plot of most operas is as thick as tissue paper (with the exception of Wagner where you need a scorecard to keep the incestous relationships straight). However it does help to have a basic idea of the characters and theme of the opera before you go, then you can concentrate on the beautiful music and libretto.
Go to enjoy the music; go to enjoy the venue (the roar of the greasepaint; the smell of the crowd); talk to your fellow opera patrons, you may be surprized what kooks, er, educated affectionatos, opera attracts.

[Moshe..]

haha exactly opera attracts the biggest kooks (that's a nice american word) in the world and oh dear especially new york. I like my kooks. You have to go just to see all their bizarre felt hats. It's one of the sad side effects of listening to too much wagner, the compulsive desire to wear a felt hat. I saw an interview with netrebko on tv, and she was really really narcissistic , like in a way you can probably only get away with in russia. I think i actually like narcissistic women. I have some very scary marriages ahead of me. And yeah, I won't lie, I'm jealous of the hair too, god if only my hair could be that shiny.

[MSFixR]

Well you have to admit that Netrebko has a voice to die for and her figure isn't bad either.

[darko.]

it would rule if this thread was called "They Met in HD" and it was a love story

[Moshe..]

Opera is a love story, or rather it contains a love story, and a death story, and a revelation of the illusionary separateness of individual identity, and of the tragedy of human freedom and choice, of how all choice must inevitably involve loss, and it's also oh too chic: opera-gloves & felt-hat is the entirely-must-have-accessory-combo F/W 08/09