Last Saturday afternoon, a couple of hundred people in Regal Cinemas WestTown Theatre #5 chatted, munched on popcorn, and otherwise whiled away the time--45 minutes by my watch--waiting for the final Live-In-HD broadcast of the season from the Metropolitan Opera to begin. Everyone was there for Die Walküre, the second opera in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, in a new, somewhat controversial production by Robert LePage. The delay was caused by a glitch in the massive "machine" that is the set for this season's new production. The waiting Knoxville opera-goers had a lot of company--the Met itself was sold out (that's about 4000 seats) and the live HD broadcast reaches 175,000 people around the world.
In case you haven't seen pictures of the set, "the machine" is a 45-ton marvel of engineering that consists of 24 plank-like structures that revolve on a central axis allowing infinitely variable surfaces for action and, notably, for video effects projection. Of course, it is a "marvel" when it works correctly, which hasn't necessarily been the case this season. Still, it is a stunning example of theatrical design.
During the first intermission feature, Met Technical Director John Sellars explained to the HD audience that the problem was in an electronic controller in one of the planks--electronics that feed back information to the elaborate computer system that controls its operation.
Despite the delay in starting, this broadcast, directed for HD by Gary Halvorson, was one of the better HD efforts from the perspective of shot selection and camera movement. Making a five-hour opera stimulating and alive for a cinema audience without resorting to gimmicks is no small task.
The excellent production starred Deborah Voigt as Brünnhilde, Bryn Terfel as Wotan, Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund, Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde, and Stephanie Blythe as Fricka. James Levine conducted the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.