On Saturday, April 5th, I made the trip up to Colorado Mills Mall to see the live HD broadcast of Puccini’s La Bohème. The performance lasted a little over 3 hours and had 2 intermissions. I was interested in participating in the event for several reasons:

First, I had volunteered to provide information on the opera, upcoming events and ask attendees to complete an audience survey for Opera America. Second, I wanted to experience the event. I admit, I’m a bit of an opera novice, but over the last few years I have become increasingly intrigued with the music genre.

Finally, I wanted to see and talk to people knowledgeable with opera about their thoughts related to participating in remote broadcasts. After all, the Los Angeles Times has said,  “The Met’s experiment of merging film with live performance has created a new art form.”

This is the second season of the transmissions. In the first season there were six (6) opera broadcasts and approximately 325,000 people purchased tickets to see the events in movie theatres worldwide. La Bohème was the seventh event of the 2007-2008 season and there is only one performance left, Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment on Saturday, April 26th. Next season the broadcast will take place over the entire season, beginning in October, 2008, and will include ten (10) transmissions.

At this event, nearly everyone I talked with had positive comments. The only negative comments I heard were around people eating popcorn and candy in the theatre. The close-ups of the performers were absolutely amazing and the transitions between the different camera positions had been meticulously planned.

In some ways, the experience reminded me of the intimacy we get with the interactions between performers in Central City; however, the size of this production was far different. Franco Zeffirelli’s recreation of Paris was incredible. Between acts, backstage cameras captured the behind the scenes activities and there was even an interview with the Met’s technical director. He said that there were 80 stagehands involved in the scene changes and it appeared as if there were hundreds of performers on the moving sets.

My only complaint would be the audio fidelity. In college, I remember making $7.00 per hour as an accompanist for the vocal majors. In most cases, the student would be only a few feet away and needless to say, our piano benches were equipped with seatbelts. There is something to be said about hearing music in person and I believe this is something that we get in Central City that will never be reproduced at these sort of events.

That being said, it’s not often that you walk away from an experience with the feeling that you have been a part of something that is the way of things to come. I have been working with technology the majority of my life and I am not easily impressed. On this day, I can tell you that I was very impressed.

My hope is that the next generation of opera lovers will enjoy these performances as much as I did. A few years ago, I took my 18-year-old stepdaughter to “The Tales of Hoffman” at Central City. As a result, she now brings her friends to the opera house on a regular basis. My guess is that the nature of these broadcasts will resonate with her. My plan will be to take her to the Met’s next live HD broadcast. See you on April 26th!