When I was growing up our family would go to Virginia Beach every year for summer vacations. One highlight was going to the boardwalk, where my dad would reluctantly buy us all t-shirts. Selling souvenirs must have been quite a business since there were always a lot of shops to choose from. My father didn’t really mind what we picked out, I just remember proudly showing off my new attire when we returned home.

Marketers might label this type of purchase as “impulsive buying behavior” and when you think about it, there’s really no reason to purchase this sort of thing if you aren’t at the destination. This got me thinking about Central City and my guess is that the casinos experience this phenomenon too. 

I recently saw a shirt with the heading “I got lucky in Central City”. It’s a clever motto, but you probably have to be in Central City to buy a shirt like this. I guess there might be the possibility that an affiliation with gambling or the play-on-words could be enough to drive this purchase, but I speculate that most of these shirts have been acquired free of charge.

So what does this have to do with Opera? Well, we recently updated the Central City Opera online gift shop with souvenirs using images from this season’s performances. So naturally, I wondered if the same impulsive buying behaviors apply? Would you come to the web site and purchase a “Susannah” t-shirt to show off your affiliation with the opera? My guess is no, especially if you had not seen the opera yet.

Select the image above or HERE to go to the online gift shop now.

What if you were given the opportunity to purchase a souvenir during the process of buying your ticket? My guess is the likelihood would increase dramatically; in fact, I can imagine a time when you could go online, purchase a performance, select your seats, add a shirt, print your ticket, arrive at opera and have the usher deliver your souvenir while you wait for the opera to start?

Combining the gift store with ticket buying is about convenience and removing obstacles in the transactional path. We live in an on-demand world and the internet can be used in so many powerful ways to support the one-to-one paradigm. I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on this matter. In the meantime, feel free to look over the new apparel on the Central City Opera web site and online store!

On Friday, April 25th, I took the trip over to the Pinehurst Country Club to hear Pat Pearce talk about this year’s upcoming production of Susannah. I enjoy these events since I get to see and catch-up with all the opera regulars; interestingly, at this event there seemed to be numerous newcomers as well.

This was the final part of the 2008 opera teasers series. I decided to record the event for those of you that couldn’t attend, but wanted to hear the proceedings. To listen to Pat’s presentation select the arrow directly below the image above.

Capturing this sort of thing is ideal for mp3 audio files. Many businesses use this format to present and archive seminars online and often call them webinars. Several opera companies are using this technology to distribute their rich media through podcasting.

A podcast is used to describe the distribution of a digital-media file over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and/or computers. The term podcast can refer either to the content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting.

I’m hoping to get your feedback on the topic. Do you find it valuable to hear events like this online? Would you subscribe to a service that automatically downloaded opera teasers to your computer or mobile device? Could you imagine listening to the basic facts of an opera on the way up to Central City before a performance instead of reading the program notes?

In this case, digital video doesn’t make a lot of sense because there really isn’t any staging and visuals remain mostly the same throughout the presentation. Video files are many times the size of audio files and can be costly to deliver to would-be viewers. As bandwidth increases on the Internet this becomes less of a factor, but today audio files are still more prominent for podcasting.

Like the Met’s Live HD broadcasts, there are many things you miss out on by not participating in an event like this in person. So next year make sure you sign up for these events when you get the mailing like the one above. Seating can sometimes be limited.

The Pinehurst Country Club was beautiful on Friday evening and conversations during cocktail hour are always a lot of fun. Our table all laughed out loud at Chris’ chicken stories while Nancy scoured the room for potential donors. Deb and Pam gave me cautious support for trying something new and then Phoebe just came by and gave me a big hug.

The Internet gives us so many options, but cyberspace can’t really replace the feelings we get from the personal interactions we make with people at events like this. You can’t be in two places at once though and it’s pretty easy to record these sort of things now.

I’ve actually found myself reminiscing the powerful music of Carlisle Floyd again and again. Click here to listen to several short musical selections on Amazon. I guess that means this opera teaser was a success since Susannah will be an event I’ll be sure not to miss this year. Perhaps this electronic version will do the same for you!

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!

My name is Glenn Alsup and I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the readers of the Central City Opera Blog. I have been working with the Opera in one way or another for most of this millennium and hope to use this platform to periodically post thoughtful anecdotes on my experiences participating with the Opera and its many patrons, as well as insightful discussion points on the use of electronic media for the opera community in general.

A little about me: In Colorado for nearly 20 years now, our family of five calls Greenwood Village home. I grew up back East, my mother is an artist, my father a Ph.D. research scientist. As a result, I have developed and pursued with great interest, the intersection between art and science. Last year I was honored to become part of the Central City Opera Board. I enjoy bringing my insight and experience to the challenges of expanding the Opera experience through the growing use electronic media technologies.

Clearly, the Internet has streamlined the way many organizations run their business operations over the last 15 years and performing arts organizations are certainly no exception. Believe it or not, history has shown that opera companies have been instrumental in the evolution of electronic media technologies over the last century. Several examples include stereophonic radio, motion picture cameras and performance simulcasts.

I look forward to discussing the Central City Opera experience with you. I’ll plan to focus on how we can best use the Internet, electronic media and the World Wide Web to maximize our enjoyment of the Opera and to bring value to the organization and our beloved performers. So please stay tuned and join in on the conversation.