The Metropolitan Opera Live in HD

[McCrutchy]

Oh, we're going there...

I will admit, I'm not much of an opera aficionado, but yesterday, I had cause to be out of my house for several hours, and on a whim, I decided to do one of these Metropolitan Opera Live in HD events they stream to movie theatres now--I saw it listed at the box office.

This particular screening was Gounod's Faust. I knew nothing of Faust beyond a passing knowledge of the Goethe play and the fact that it involved a deal with the Devil (or Mephistopheles), but I thought it would make interesting enough opera.

I purchased a ticket and was told by an older employee of the theatre that I was lucky, as these things normally sell out. I was directed to a theatre that, 30 minutes before the scheduled start time, was pretty packed. The aformentioned employee must have been the master of ceremonies for these shows, because she was there handing out synopsis print-outs and generally to oversee the screening.

The show started and I didn't realize we would actually have a host for the show, Joyce DiDonato, who actually came off very well and not at all corny (like say, an awards shot host) especially given that she must have spent most of the time looking dead on at a camera. The Met also combined her bits with some imagery where relevant, (as I recall), and it all came off rather well. She's also not bad to look at...

The event was supposed to be 4 hours and 25 minutes in duration, including two leisurely intermissions of 15 minutes each (just as those actually at the Met had), but in many cases, DiDonato would actually interview a major player as they came backstage prior to the intermission, and again, everybody came off well. I found that to be an interesting bonus. More impressive is that the three leads are German, are singing an opera in French, and are also fluent in conversational English.

I was dreading the A/V presentation after being horrified by seeing The Lion King in 3D at this theatre, but these Met broadcasts are very high quality, and I would say it was far superior to an upscaled DVD and probably a notch below most of the high-quality opera BDs on the market. The opera was subtitled in English in highly legible, unobtrusive white font subtitles.

In my terribly uneducated opinion, the play itself was quite good, but not fantastic. This version updates Faust to the 20th century (either between the wars or during WWII, I can't remember, though) and I think that generally works well, at least until midway through Act IV, when I lost comprehension of exactly what was going on and what was happening to whom.

Jonas Kaufmann was excellent as Faust, but to me it was René Pape who stole the show as Méphistophélès. It would seem the audience agreed with me, as he got the loudest cheers (twice) during the curtain calls.

And all this for $22.00 at my AMC, which is a fraction of what you will pay for nosebleed seats at the Met itself. I have a suspicion that this is part of the reason they sell out.

Color me impressed. I might start going to these shows on a regular basis. There are only so many every season (five more this year), and the next is on January 21st, 2012.

EDIT: As you can see above, Decca have finally released this very production on Blu-ray.