Virtual trip to the opera

Ariane Bankes

Wednesday, 1st April 2009

Ariane Bankes on the appeal of live broadcasts on television and in the cinema

‘Having every best seat in the house’ is how some describe seeing opera live on screen, and recently we’ve had the opportunity of seeing the nuts and bolts backstage, too. It was a bold initiative of English National Opera and Sky Arts to take the cameras behind the scenes on the first night of Jonathan Miller’s new production of La bohème for Sky Arts 1, while simultaneously broadcasting the opera itself live on Sky Arts 2, and it was quite a challenge for the backstage crew: how do you keep your audience gripped for two and a half hours when all the real action is happening the other side of the set? Jonathan Miller himself was less than enthusiastic at the prospect: ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ he commented, somewhat testily, hoping quite understandably that the television audience wasn’t going to be continually switching over to check what was brewing behind the scenes. But for those of us tuned in backstage for the duration there was hardly a dull moment as we hovered in the wings, swerved through cramped corridors between artists’ dressing rooms and into the cavernous recesses of the stage in pursuit of the various players in this particular drama.

Sky presenter Penny Morris was in the driving seat, conducting a series of enthusiastic, if slightly dizzy, interviews with anyone happy to talk to her: singers, who gamely chatted to camera as wigs were tweaked and beards adjusted, right up to their call on stage; children in the chorus, thrilled at a late night-out and a party afterwards; off-stage chorus master and orchestral players, relieved that no untoward incidents — a horse apparently once fell on to a percussionist in the pit — had so far marred the evening; dressers and make-up girls applying the finishing touches, stage managers cueing lighting and singers on and off; and stagehands cranking the ingeniously interlocking set into action. Gliding silently through this well-rehearsed m�lée like a ghost was Miller, offering a word here, a hug there, a laconic shrug of the shoulders. There were few great revelations — except, for me, the fact that all that paper snow is methodically scattered by hand from the gantry rather than coming out of some mythical snow-machine — but it conveyed with warmth the human background to this complex and finely calibrated opera machine.

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Fr. Wm. H. Martin, OGS+

April 3rd, 2009 4:34pm Report this comment

We in El Paso, Texas, on the international border with Mexico, fill our cinema-opera house regularly, having driven many miles to do so, in order to experience opera as it is not seen in the opera house in NYC. And audiences are only getting larger. Same audience, or a new one? Does it matter? We are getting our opera which is not available to us in any other way. Bravo, Peter Gelb, we
are with you all the way!.

John G. Deacon (Philips Classics video, 1989-94)

April 4th, 2009 3:51pm Report this comment

One of the MET's cinema-relayed broadcasts (La Bohème with Gheorghiu & Vargas) has now appeared on DVD and, predictably, it is spoilt by the NY audience treating it as an audience participation show.

For example, after nearly 100 years, audiences (probably) throughout the world (but certainly including the ROH, La Scala, G'bourne and Madrid) have all learnt to allow the last 15 mins. of Act I to run through without the magic being spoilt by applause. This, I suggest, and especially in reference to the MET, not only spoils the moment (and most especially the intimacy which the camera brings) but totally ruins repeated viewing at home.

In my view it is intolerable, for home video, to have some moron shouting "Bravo" over the ending of 'Che gelida...' and for the home viewer to have to anticipate it every single time one watches the recording. It is not enough to sit with the a finger on the mute button.

I once asked Peter Gelb why, when filming was taking place, no request was made to the MET audience to contain their enthusiasism (and ignorance). The ROH used to make requests when cameras were present but Gelb replied that he simply wouldn't dare to intervene.

Such a shame. For a live broadcast one can accept reasonable applause but not for home video.

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