DVD Chronicle
2011; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 4; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/thr.2011.0091
ISSN1939-9774
Autores Tópico(s)Cinema and Media Studies
ResumoDVD Chronicle Jefferson Hunter (bio) Live in HD series from the Metropolitan Opera, individual operas on DVD available from www.metopera.com and www.target.com Sing Faster: the Stagehands' Ring Cycle, directed by Jon Else (New Video Group, 2004) Amadeus, directed by Milos Forman (Director's Edition, Warner Home Video, 2002) Topsy-Turvy, directed by Mike Leigh (Blu-ray edition, Criterion Collection, 2011) La Traviata, directed by Franco Zeffirelli (Deutsche Gramophon, 2008) The Cunning Little Vixen, directed by Geoff Dunbar (Opus Arte, 2003) The Tales of Hoffman, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Criterion Collection, 2005) The Magic Flute, directed by Ingmar Bergman (Criterion Collection, 2000). In "Opera Goes to the Movies," in the Spring 2010 issue of this journal, Johanna Keller discussed the relatively new cultural phenomenon of the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series. She was unquestionably right in noting how important these worldwide broadcasts have become to the financial health of the Met and houses with similar programs, like La Scala, and equally right, I think, in praising ("expertly done") the broadcasts' technical aspects. All of us who love opera owe a massive debt to Peter Gelb, the Met's General Manager, for giving us better views of the stage than any we could afford ourselves and for treating us to images and sounds of remarkable quality. The opera stars who host the screenings piously exhort us to come to an actual theater and witness opera at first hand, but the truth is that the HD broadcasts are in some ways superior to—and, obviously, much less expensive than—trips to Lincoln Center. The seats at the neighborhood cineplex are more comfortable, the subtitles better placed for reading, and one can bring in food, a not unimportant fact when five and a half hours of Wagner are in prospect. I know of a couple who smuggle in a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses to enrich their operatic experience. Nowadays the Met has made operas in HD widely available after the initial screenings, in DVDs purchasable at Target or in streamed-to-computer form via the Met Player program, and so not even a visit to the cineplex is required, strictly speaking; one can see the performances at home, where the seats are even more comfortable and the wine does not have to be smuggled in. But I do not recommend opera on the small screen. This is an art form meant to be large, to be oversize, and meant to be seen in the company of others. The audiences for all the broadcasts I have attended have been packed, enthusiastic, and ready to [End Page 574] laugh (at the antics in the Met's Don Pasquale, say). At the end we have applauded right alongside the opera-goers at Lincoln Center. Our enjoyment is part of the whole experience. In mentioning five and a half hours of Wagner I am thinking of the HD screening in May of Die Walküre, the second installment of the Met's new Ring cycle, with James Levine conducting and with Deborah Voigt, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel, and Stephanie Blythe in the cast. Robert Lepage did the staging; Gary Halvorson directed the broadcast. The opera began a half-hour late, thanks to sensor problems with Lepage's massive mechanical set ("the Machine," the performers call it), and judging by comments from audience members around me, the Machine once operational was not to everyone's taste. The rocking-horse motions of its segments during the Ride of the Valkyries, with each Valkyrie gallantly singing while being bucked up and down on her bronco, then sliding down the inclined segment to the stage like a toddler dismounting a teeter-totter, seemed more risible than thrilling. Possibly every staging of the Ride will seem a let-down after Francis Ford Coppola's version of it in Apocalypse Now, with Wagner's music blaring from loudspeakers and helicopters coming in low and fast to attack the Vietnamese village. In the Met Walküre I liked the Machine much better at the opening, where with admirable economy the segments were tilted, then lighted, to create a stylized forest for the...
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