Opera companies around the world are making filmed versions of their productions available online.
ByHeidi WalesonMarch 23, 2020 5:22 pm ET
With opera houses shuttered and social distancing the norm, opera lovers can still find a wealth of lyric theater online. Major companies and arts streaming services are offering free performances from their archives; smaller groups are putting up important pieces that would otherwise have been seen only by relatively few; musicians are giving live performances from their homes. How to choose? Here are some ideas for the coming weeks; more to come.
In the U.S., the Metropolitan Opera is uniquely well-positioned for this new frontier, with its Met Opera on Demand service and the enormous archive of operas filmed for HD transmission into cinemas over the past 14 years. The company is now offering a new title, free of charge, every day. Each stream begins at 7:30 p.m. EDT; the opera is available on the homepage, metopera.org, for 23 hours. (Fans can also pay for Met Opera on Demand and get unlimited access to the archive.) The week of March 23 is all-Wagner, opening with Mariusz Treliński’s fine, death-haunted production of “Tristan und Isolde” from 2016, featuring the charismatic Nina Stemme and conducted by Simon Rattle. Then, starting on Tuesday, you can revisit Robert Lepage’s controversial “Ring,” with its much-reviled “Machine” and its original cast, in performances from 2010 through 2012.
The Oct. 9, 2010, performance of “Das Rheingold,” streaming on March 24, feels different on a television screen. Some of its big effects retain their power—like the appearance of the swimming, suspended Rhinemaidens as the Machine’s giant planks rear up and flip over; others, like the staircase down to Nibelheim, that rely on sheer monumentality worked better live. This “Ring” was in the forefront of the trend of using sophisticated video for opera, and the water bubbles and the rainbow bridge are splendid; the costumes are still weirdly terrible. However, the biggest reason to catch this “Rheingold” is the cast, especially the astonishing Alberich of bass-baritone Eric Owens, a performance that catapulted him into Wagner stardom. Mr. Owens’s complex portrayal investigates the development of a villain: first, he’s a buffoon; then, a terrifying megalomaniac; and finally, a vengeful obsessive, his curse fueled by fury and humiliation. Bryn Terfel’s vocally subtle and rich-voiced Wotan is another plus (and some consolation for his dropping out of the Met’s recent “Flying Dutchman”), and the HD close-ups allow for theatrical nuance lost in the house, where the set dwarfed the singers.
Had enough Wagner? Starting Monday, March 30, catch the Met’s transcendent May 2019 revival of Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmelites,” conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Isabel Leonard as Blanche and Karita Mattila as the Old Prioress.
Many European theaters have streaming capacity and archives. The Berlin State Opera is offering daily livestreams free of charge through April 19, beginning at noon CET (7 a.m. EDT) and available at staatsoper-berlin.de/de for 20 hours. Most will not have English subtitles, including a noteworthy staging of Massenet’s “Manon,” starting on March 29. Vincent Paterson’s production from 2007 is a lively update to the 1950s, with terrific, couture-worthy costumes by Susan Hilferty and, best of all, Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón as the doomed lovers. They are young, fresh and sparkling, meshing vocal brilliance with real romantic chemistry. Ms. Netrebko, transformed along the way into a Marilyn Monroe-type starlet, plays Manon as a minx with feelings; Mr. Villazón’s passionate, heart-on-the-sleeve delivery is not to be missed; and their red-hot love affair is totally believable—watch her grab him through the bars in the St. Sulpice scene. The performance is also available—with English subtitles—on DVD.
Beth Morrison Projects changed the face of opera in America by supporting, curating and producing the work of a whole new generation of composers, librettists and creators. My first encounter with Ms. Morrison’s work was “Dog Days,” by David T. Little and Royce Vavrek, at Peak Performances in 2012; BMP and the HERE Arts Center then created the Prototype Festival, now the primary American showcase for cutting-edge new opera. BMP is currently streaming productions on its website, one a week, starting with “Dog Days,” which is available through March 25.
“Dog Days” is not a soothing piece. It depicts an ordinary family’s disintegration in the wake of an unspecified apocalypse, perhaps uncomfortably close to our circumstances at the present moment. However, Mr. Vavrek’s trenchant libretto and Mr. Little’s taut score, infused with imaginative percussion and electronics and shot through with moments of startling lyricism, announce a new, gripping theatrical language. Robert Woodruff’s intense direction holds up on the small screen, and Lauren Worsham’s performance as the preteen Lisa remains incandescent.
Next up at BMP is Missy Mazzoli’s dreamy “Song From the Uproar,” inspired by the life of the early 20th-century explorer Isabelle Eberhardt. HERE is also streaming programming. Its Wednesday Watch Parties at 7 p.m. EDT will feature full-length pieces via Facebook Live and can be accessed on HERE’s website at here.org/programs/online-programming. On April 1, you can catch Kamala Sankaram’s intriguing “Looking at You” from 2019, which examines internet surveillance, appropriate now that our lives, for the foreseeable future, are to be lived online.
—Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).
Editors’ note: “The Staying Inside Guide” is a new Arts in Review feature in which editors and critics recommend ways to continue engaging with arts and culture during a period of social distancing.
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