Marriage of Figaro - Live stream

[ardcarp]

Did anyone watch the live streaming of Figaro from The ROH last evening? Ivor Bolton at the helm. Some great singing, a lot of 'business' from the producer, Singers' synch with the pit not always 100%. Enjoyment for me? Seven out of ten. No, maybe eight. In retrospect it was all a bit heavyweight. I've seen more froth and fun in good amateur productions, though not, of course the musical polish.

(Not their fault, of course, but the first ten minutes had no sub-titles. As I had taken my grand-daughter to her first full-length opera, I was weighing up the benefits of whispering the plot throughout against the annoyance of adjacent audience members.)

[french frank]

As I had taken my grand-daughter to her first full-length opera, I was weighing up the benefits of whispering the plot throughout against the annoyance of adjacent audience members.)

Was this a Big Screen/cinema performance?

[ardcarp]

Yes. Looking forward to L'incoronazione di Popcorn next....

[Dave2002]

As I had taken my grand-daughter to her first full-length opera, I was weighing up the benefits of whispering the plot throughout against the annoyance of adjacent audience members.)

We went to our local cinema, and enjoyed it. We wondered if A.A. Milne had seen a production - mention of "cunning plots", and in response to a question "Who's there? - response "Nobody!"

I hope your grand-daughter enjoyed it, though I think one has to be careful. You have the advantage of not being one of her parents, so your relationship will be different. The first operas we took our daughter to live - were Max and the Wild Things, and Higglety, Pigglety Pop! at the old Glydebourne, which were great. She wasn't very old at the time. Later we saw operas at Verona, and also Simon Boccanegra at ENO, and some Gluck at Drottningholm, and we must have seen Marriage of Figaro at the Proms - probably the production in 1989. Possibly these experiences have put her off opera and classical music for life - though she does now go to some of the cinema ballet productions and apparently enjoys them, and her ability to identify some music and composers - for example answering University Challenge music quesionts - is surprisingly good for someone who now claims not to want to listen to, or like, classical music. She's however also very good at identifying songs from musicals, and other forms of music.

I just feel sad that we seem to have put our own daughter (now thirty something) off classical music by early exposure, though we as parents can be blamed for that - whereas the grand parent - child relation works differently, and many things can be forgiven.

Returning to the recent MoF from the ROH, it was a polished production, and there are some advantages of seeing it at the cinema. Not having to crane one's neck up to see the surtitles is a definite plus. The interview with Erwin Schrott in the interval was entertaining too, and it's interesting how the cinema experience is different from that in an opera house, with a mixture of some close-up views, and some more distant shots. Having experienced opera in the cinema I'd now say that it's a useful additional way of experiencing opera, though does not replace going to an opera house. It does also have the merit of cheapness and being easy to access.

After seeing this we might even start to reuse our Lovefilm by Post accounts, which in recent years we have hardly used at all. The 2008 ROH production, again with Schrott, is in the rental catalogue.

PS: Theatre too - http://importanceofearnest.com/cinema/ Importance of Being Earnest with David Suchet tomorrow! We want to see how it compares with the recent production with Martin Jarvis and Nigel Havers - which was hilarious.

[Pulcinella]

I was busy (charity trustees' meeting), but my partner went, and left at the interval: couldn't bear it, he said.
Partly the cinema's fault (too loud: we have told them before!), but he also thought the conducting wooden, didn't like the singers, and, most of all, was annoyed that the mics placed to pick up the ripples of amusement in the audience unfortunately picked up two inconsiderate coughers, who hacked their way throughout.
Yesterday's Times review was not altogether complimentary, and mentioned the fact that the ROH orchestra was actually playing in Japan at the time; was it the second team playing in London, then?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yesterday's Times review ... mentioned the fact the the ROH orchestra was actually playing in Japan at the time; was it the second team playing in London, then?

Well, ardy mentioned that the voices & orchestra weren't always in sync - perhaps they Skyped it?

[ardcarp]

the ROH orchestra was actually playing in Japan at the time

The pit orchestra on 6.10.15 consisted of the 'stay-at-homes' plus deps...but you wouldn't have known.

[ardcarp]

I hope your grand-daughter enjoyed it, though I think one has to be careful. You have the advantage of not being one of her parents, so your relationship will be different. The first operas we took our daughter to live - were Max and the Wild Things, and Higglety, Pigglety Pop! at the old Glydebourne, which were great. She wasn't very old at the time. Later we saw operas at Verona, and also Simon Boccanegra at ENO, and some Gluck at Drottningholm, and we must have seen Marriage of Figaro at the Proms - probably the production in 1989. Possibly these experiences have put her off opera and classical music for life

Thanks for your concern Dave 2002 !

The grand-daughter in question is 17 and doing A-level Music. She is very keen on music of all sorts and this was a great experience for her. She appreciated the wit, loved the music (she plays the Mozart Clarinet Concerto and Quintet), but did find some bits 'too long'. I don't think I've put her off 'classical' music. Hope not, anyway.

[Dave2002]

The grand-daughter in question is 17 and doing A-level Music. She is very keen on music of all sorts and this was a great experience for her. She appreciated the wit, loved the music (she plays the Mozart Clarinet Concerto and Quintet), but did find some bits 'too long'. I don't think I've put her off 'classical' music. Hope not, anyway.

Good - so hopefully no danger of putting her off then. We failed in that regard re our daughter, which I think is a shame. She can't really play any instrument well - but give her a piano and the music for Bach's 48 and sometimes one hears some of the easier ones in quite recognisable sound. Doesn't admit it, of course. We probably did too much too early, though I do recall her actually enjoying Die Fledermaus at ENO.

Ballets, some of which do have quite decent music, do not seem to have caused such entrenched resentment.

Re the cinema performances - there are a whole lot more coming along, and some should be good. The sound quality is not as good as in real life (in good seasts), but is really not impossibly bad nowadays, and it's not too loud in our cinema as mentioned by another poster. As I mentioned before, the experience is different from live in theatre opera, but a lot cheaper. I thought Bolton managed well enough for most of the performance, though really only caught fire in the finales. Not a big enough problem to cause us to walk out into a rather wet evening. There might have been some occasional small problems with ensemble, and synchronising the voices to the instruments, but not enough to worry about. We enjoyed it for what it was. The Tweets etc. are, of course, laughable!

Some "advice" might be helpful though. Some members of the cinema audience clapped - and continued to do so throughout. Perhaps Simon Callow should have encouraged this! He could have said something like "We all know it's stupid and pointless, but if you want to clap and it makes you feel better, do it anyway. In fact, maybe all of you out there should be clapping - one day we'll put in microphones to feed back to the stage!"

[ardcarp]

Here's BBC Music's 10 pieces to encourage secondary age kids to discover the joys of 'classical' music.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2015/ten-pieces-secondary