Opera: Is It Live or Is It Memorex ... er ... Blu-Ray?

[DavidRoss]

...sitting listening to a great performance on CD, live or studio and following it with the libretto....that opera of the mind can be as satisfying as any.

QFT.

[DavidRoss]

MI prefers 20th century music, which is under-performed.  Expecting that MI should pay in both money and time to sit through say four hours of Mozart, when he wouldn't even enjoy twenty minutes of Mozart seems to me to be ridiculous expectations.  The fact of the matter is that MI will probably not see a local opera company play the stuff that he likes.  He is perfectly well suited to listening at home with cds/dvds.  Let's stop with the MI bashing.

No one's bashing MI. Everyone here seems to be exhibiting remarkably gracious and good-humored tolerance, just as they have ever since he first showed up at GMG under a different name a few years ago.  Even though he had only recently begun listening to classical music, he was already bristling with adolescent arrogance about his "superior preferences" for "cutting edge" 20th Century music, and he frequently expressed disapproval of the boring music written by old farts like Beethoven and Mozart. And, typical of most folks with strong opinions formed without the benefit of education and experience, he was then, as now, rather resistant to others' efforts to pry open his mind.

I submit that "preferences" are based on experiencing and understanding the alternatives. Prejudices are based on thinking and believing in the absence of such experience and understanding.

One of the great benefits of consorting with diverse people is that they challenge our prejudices, inviting us to open our minds and offering the possibility of learning, increased understanding, and a richer, fuller appreciation of life. And one of the perennial wonders of human beings is that most of us put an hundred times more effort into defending our prejudices than we put into overcoming them.

[Superhorn]

    It's certainly a great experience to attend a live opera performance, but DVDs, Bly-Ray and even television  have one decided advantage
over being there in the opera house.  In the opera house, you are generally too far away from the singers ,unless you are in the closest seats to the stage, to see  the expressions on their faces  and how they react to each other and interact .
   With DVD etc,  you can  see this, and for me,at least, this  greatly adds  to  the experience .  I love the Met  , huge and cavernous as it is, but  you miss th eexperience of seeing the characters close up .
    Having seen the recent PBS Met Ring  at home a couple of weeks ago,  I found myself really caught up in the  action  of the huge  cycle .

[Opus106]

Expecting that MI should pay in both money and time to sit through say four hours of Mozart, when he wouldn't even enjoy twenty minutes of Mozart seems to me to be ridiculous expectations.  The fact of the matter is that MI will probably not see a local opera company play the stuff that he likes.  He is perfectly well suited to listening at home with cds/dvds. 

*In a hushed voice* Oh, it's reverse psychology, right?

Let's stop with the MI bashing.

Who's bashing, MI? (In this thread, at least. ) Compelling him to open up to other avenues, perhaps. Apart from the music, attending a concert will give one a chance to meet more like-minded people than sitting in front of the computer, don't you think? Given how excited he was talking to another fan for a mere 30 minutes, a visit to the concert house will probably be even more enriching. Who is to say that a local Berg scholar won't be attending a production of Die Zauberflöte?

[Mirror Image]

Here's a brotherly challenge for you, John: Instead of purchasing the 20th version of a concerto or the 88th version of a symphony, save up some money and visit the opera. You and we know pretty well that you are not going to listen to that disc more than three or four times. So, instead of putting the money through one drain, try a new one. (Don't tell me that you have preferences in drains as well! )

I'm all for that, Opus, but, again, the opera has to one I want to see (i. e. any of Janacek's operas, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde).

[Mirror Image]

You're hopeless.  I don't want to be your dad anymore.

[Drasko]

    It's certainly a great experience to attend a live opera performance, but DVDs, Bly-Ray and even television  have one decided advantage
over being there in the opera house.  In the opera house, you are generally too far away from the singers ,unless you are in the closest seats to the stage, to see  the expressions on their faces  and how they react to each other and interact .
   

I find that more often a liability than advantage.

[DavidRoss]

The first opera I ever saw live was La Boheme. I had no interest in it whatsoever. Thought the story was sappy and had learned to be somewhat contemptuous of Puccini's gushingly beautiful music. And it wasn't a world-class production, but just the Sacramento Opera. (At least the music was live and not recorded, as I've experienced since at some small regional productions like North Bay Opera.)

The only reason I went was because my sweetheart had casually expressed a desire to see it and I wanted to surprise her with something completely unexpected.

I was the one most surprised. I enjoyed it. Liked it so much that I surprised her next with tickets for SFO. (I forget the production.)

Now when I'm paying $200 a seat or more, I'm like MI and try to make sure it's for something I'm likely to enjoy. (But of course I'm an old fart and learned long ago that enjoyment is mostly determined by my attitude toward something.) But for $25 or $30 a seat--especially for the opportunity to have a significant experience of the sort I've never had before--I'm unlikely to hesitate seeing something I'm less certain about.

To me the most important thing about opera is the music, of course, but the pomp and pageantry can be pretty exhilarating, too! The last opera we saw was SFO's recent Zauberflöte. The music and singing were great, of course, but my wife and I both were especially thrilled by the sets and costumes. Jun Kaneko's production was eye-poppingly beautiful and endlessly fascinating, an ever-changing series of paintings in progress. I've seen clips of it on the web, but being there was orders of magnitude better!

(See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-martinfield/magic-flute-jun-kaneko_b_1633445.html )

[DavidRoss]

I find that more often a liability than advantage.

Sometimes blu ray is too much of a good thing.

[Tsaraslondon]

Sometimes blu ray is too much of a good thing.

Indeed. Not all opera singers benefit from close inspection. Distance can lend enchantment.

[DavidRoss]

Reflecting on what others have said about the specialness of interaction between performers and audience in live opera, I'm reminded especially of SFO's Barber of Seville a few years back, when a wonderful rapport based on shared appreciation of the joke was established from the first moment that Thomas Hampson as Figaro rode his funny little motorcycle onto the stage.

And that brings to mind one of my favorite concert-going experiences in recent years, after being stuck with front row seats for Gil Shaham's performance of Schuman's violin concerto with MTT/SFS, when I had eye contact with Shaham throughout the performance and it was clear that he was feeding off my enjoyment of his playing. You just don't get that stuff sitting on the sofa at home.

[The new erato]

Nothing - absolutely nothing - compares to live opera. Considered the music and performances are half decent; it can transform you, even from a mediocre seat. But it's expensive, and I can understand the wish to watch only stuff you are "very into". But good art trancends genre. Last year I've seen and enjoyed both Handel's Xerxes and Chabrier's L'Etoile.