Cineworld, Eastbourne, 5 January 2013

Though a regular opera goer and reviewer for almost half a century now, this was my first encounter with live transmissions from the Met in HD at the cinema. I’ve watched the TV coverage for a few years and enjoyed many of these, though even large screen coverage is nothing like the experience of opera in the opera-house.

What surprised me was how much of the experience was closer to watching the TV than actually being at a live performance. Part of this is to do with the venue itself. The cinema presentation includes back-stage interviews and previews of forth-coming operas in the current series. While it was something of a surprise to hear questa o quella from a rehearsal for Rigoletto immediately before Act 3 of Les Troyens, it might have been even more disconcerting before Act 2 of Parsifal. At home, I put these sections on mute while I go out and make some coffee. There are no proper intervals and even if there were the cinema is not equipped to provide refreshments for the normal opera audience. Somehow pop-corn and hot-dogs don’t sit comfortably with five hours of Berlioz.

That said, once the opera proper starts the concentration levels of the audience are superb and you could hear a pin drop throughout. On this occasion we were watching Francesca Zambello’s ten year old production of Berlioz’ Les Troyens, with Bryan Hymel a thrilling Aeneas and Susan Graham an emotionally convincing Dido. In the earlier acts Deborah Voigt had the vocal agility for Cassandra but was rather wooden on stage. Her costume and wig reminded me of Birgit Nilsson at Bayreuth in the late 1960s. Not that the production helped her much as there was a lot of unmotivated standing around, rather than any deeper psychological impact. The vast spaces of the Met stage were comfortably filled by a extended chorus and large numbers of dancers. In Act 4, Dido was entertained by 28 dancers! more than the normal corp for a professional ballet company.

The Carthaginean scenes were more successful than the Trojan, though there was an impressive horse. Fabio Luisi’s conducting moved things swiftly and there were no longeurs. BH

The next HD transmission from the Met is on 19 Jan with Maria Stuarda followed by the new Rigoletto (updated to 1970s Los Angeles) and a new Parsifal on 2 March with Jonas Kauffmann in the lead. Details from www.metopera.org/HD