ROH (streaming live), 04/09/2020
Theoretically, this should be have been a blog about a live brodacast, in the same way I was doing them for the cinema HD broadcasts over the last few years. The fact remains is that it's different watching at home. There are technical issues which don't (usually) exist in the cinema, both in terms of audio and video, and there's an ambience, or lack thereof, a different type of listening/watching experience. Yet this is something that is likely to become more prevalent, especially the longer it is before a viable vaccine for COVID-19 emerges. Streaming live may allow theatrical companies and orchestras to make up, to some extent, for the obligatory reduced capacity of their regular venues. Also to the good, it opens up the experience, potentially, to an audience which might normally feel excluded from the concert hall or opera house both in terms of price and of public. To those, the question of ambience at home will not be significant; to those like me, it is something to which we will need to adjust.
The issues of audio, video and internet streaming will need to be addressed. Part of it will be a willingness to invest at home, but part is also the proper provision of the right tools. Tonight, in order to watch this show on a decent sized screen, and with speakers better than those normally provided with computers, I needed to mirror-cast from a laptop to the TV. That means a 7-second delay, and depending on the load on the bandwidth, more or less intermittent "hiccups". Tonight, there were very few, which was a blessing, because there's nothing like internet glitches to throw you out of your listening/watching experience. But apps specifically designed to manage the stream, and then made available on the appropriate platforms for smart TVs and tools like Amazon Fire or Chromecast, are an absolute necessity.
The concert/gala was impressive. The ROH orchestra was spread out over the stalls area, a raised floor covering the seating area and the pit (rather reminiscent of the wartime days during which the Opera House was converted into a dance hall), with the chorus occupying the parterre boxes ringing the stalls. The singers appeared on the stage, more or less as usual, but maintaining an appropriate distance from each other when more than one performed together. Musically, everyone was on top form, with a first-class vocal sextet of Lisette Oropesa, Kristine Opolais, Aigul Akhmetshina, Charles Castronovo, Vito Priante and Gerald Finley. The programme was on the popular side without being completely hackneyed, but the quality of the singing and orchestral playing put it above reproach. To pick from the field, Oropesa's Manon, a role she has very much made her own, and above all, Finley, in both his appearances as Iago and Scarpia, showing that you can sound really beautiful in these villainous roles, and still make the blood run cold, truly exceptional singing on every count.
[Next : 8th September]