When Peter Gelb took over as the new general director of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, he promised several initiatives to bring opera to broader audiences. The leading American opera company opened its season last September, and New Yorkers were able to watch the celebrity-studded performance of Madama Butterfly on large screens in the plaza of Lincoln Center and the chaos of Times Square. The Met even brought a brief scene from its production of The Barber of Seville on the Late Show with David Letterman.
Many years ago, the Met halted its annual practice of taking a production on a tour of the United States, something that became too expensive as budgets bloated. Now, the Met is touring virtually, through the ingenious medium of live digital simulcast into movie theaters around the world. On six Saturday afternoons this winter and spring, you can watch an opera live as it takes place on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. The premiere of these simulcasts last Saturday was a huge success. That simulcast, of the shortened version of Julie Taymor’s phantasmagoric Magic Flute, was perfect for children, and families responded in impressive numbers. In the Washington area, it showed at only at one theater, which sold out almost immediately.
This Saturday (January 6, 1:30 p.m.), the experiment continues, with a simulcast of Bellini’s bel canto classic I Puritani. The production and much of the cast have been criticized, but the show essentially belongs to Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko (shown here), a singer known as much for her sex appeal as her voice. In my experience, she may not have the most athletic voice, but she is a talented actress who gives everything she has dramatically when she is on stage, which is not necessarily something people associate with opera. That characterization of Netrebko appears to hold true for this production: critics have written that she may not have all the intricate runs and high notes one could want in a bel canto opera, but her mad scene has been universally praised.
Screenings of I Puritani at the Hoffman Center in Alexandria and the Regal United Artists Snowden Square in Columbia are already sold out. To see the Met this week, Washingtonians will have to travel all the way to the Regal Bel Air Cinema Stadium 14 (Abingdon, Md.), which still has tickets. We understand that the simulcast can only be shown in a newer theater with the necessary high-definition digital projection system. Even so, where is the love for Washington, Metropolitan Opera? There must be a theater in the District of Columbia that could do this.
Other simulcasts this month include the world-premiere production of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor (January 13, 1:30 p.m.) and a recently added rebroadcast of The Magic Flute (January 23, 7:30 p.m.). Tickets for the latter simulcast go on sale this Saturday, January 6 and are likely to sell quickly. There will be simulcasts at the rate of one per month following that: Eugene Onegin (February 24), The Barber of Seville (March 24), and Il Trittico (April 28), all at 1:30 p.m. The theaters change with every simulcast, so check the Web site carefully.
Image of Anna Netrebko by Peter Rigaud, courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon
