With the second year of the live telecasts from the Metropolitan Opera, the recent production of La Scala's AIDA, and the announcement of San Francisco Opera getting into the mix, opera is descending on the multiplex. In general, regional opera companies are embracing the phenomenon as one that will educate, enrich and enlarge the audience for opera everywhere.
If we do it right, it'll be like Starbucks coming into a community and actually driving up sales at independent coffee shops, and not like Wal-Mart killing off mainstreet hardware stores and five and dimes. Check out the story about Starbucks online at Slate.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, opera a cappella now available at Albany Records
I went to one of these telecasts yesterday, at the Cinemark 12 multiplex in Hadley. There was a good-sized audience. The production was...you guessed it: Verdi's Macbeth (conductor James Levine, director Adrian Noble). The Met sure does put on a fab show.
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