OK, seeing High Definition video on a large screen is the next best thing to being there -- and even has advantages. It was great to see the singers close. I never realized, from watching live opera "from a distance," what good actors so many of them are. Also, during intermissions there were interviews with major singers, the conductor, the videographer, tech people, casting people (who said there are only 10 men in the world today who can sing Tristan!). This gave an inside view of something of a production challenge: rampant illnesses in the cast. For example, in the last four performances, Isolde sang opposite four different men playing Tristan. She had no rehearsal time with any but the scheduled lead. The one this afternoon had just flown in from Berlin. The Isolde actress talked about playing a love scene with a man with whom you not only never rehearsed but never even met! Well, everything went off flawlessly. The only criticism I have of this magnificent production and experience is that the video director got carried away with her split screens now and again, letting form conquer content and getting too artsy-fartsy for her own good.
If you get a chance to see opera on HD, don't pass up the opportunity.
Something else I love about this opera: no breaks in the action. No music breaks where an enthusiastic audience can interrupt the narrative with applause and "Bravos." No opportunity to turn the opera into a social event. Just continuous, unrelenting, accumulating, devastating music!
I did my UCLA English honors thesis on E. A. Robinson's "Arthurian Cycle," three book-length poems (Lancelot, Merlin, Tristram). Time to read his version of Tristan/Tristram again, and I just ordered it via inter-university loan.
1 comment:
Must have been some experience. I saw my first opera( first with stage design and A-list actors) last Thursday at the Met. I was blown away. It was Peter Grimes and even though the stage design was minimal and my seats were far away from the stage you could see the work that went into it. Tristan and Isolde, of course, would have been grander.
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