A Night at the Opera … With Nachos

The Metropolitan Opera began its live broadcasts into movie theaters with “The Magic Flute” on December 30. Nearly 30,000 people around the world saw the broadcast. On Saturday, the broadcast of “I Puritani” sold out in 19 of 83 American venues, which reached 67% capacity. So what’s it like to see an opera in a movie theater? Our far-flung correspondents report:COLUMBUS, Ohio — With Ohio State University in the national championship, could “I Puritani” distract a city from college football? Yes, indeed — at least for the crowd of about 150 that attended the opera broadcast at the Georgesville Regal, in a suburb of Columbus.On Saturday at 1 p.m., a line of about 30 people formed outside the theater. The crowd was more male than female, older than younger. With beards and sweaters, it was a shaggy, rather academic-looking bunch. There were some who looked like students, though no children. The group was definitely an opera — not a movie — crowd.Inside, the Met’s great gold curtain was on the screen. I didn’t see popcorn, but there was an occasional packed lunch. WOSU’s radio host Christopher Purdy (Columbus’s answer to the Met’s “Opera Quiz”) gave a funny, short introduction to the opera and the conventions of bel canto. A weird grinding noise suggested the Met orchestra was tuning industrial appliances rather than musical instruments, but it was corrected before the curtain rose. Latecomers waited at the side for the first scene to end before taking their seats.Though everything technical worked well, the feeling wasn’t one of being in an opera house. The sense of incipient magic was missing, and the promise of three-dimensional, if vicarious, experience that even the curtained stage promises was absent. Still, it was not like watching a movie — more like a chamber concert.In opera, all the elements — the music, the spectacle, the underlying feelings — gradually merge into something that gives a trancelike sense of heightened life and meaning. But some things got in the way. Seeing the choristers up close, with their highly expressive and contemporary faces, made it hard to entertain the illusion that they were followers of Oliver Cromwell. Backstage shots that included the orchestra had a similar effect.But by the second scene of Act I, it became easier to give myself over to the experience — one similar to, if fainter than, being there in person. Eventually, the movie conventions of close-ups and changed perspectives intensified the experience. Though I had thought a warhorse like “I Puritani” was an odd choice, once I saw and heard a fair bit of Anna Netrebko, I got the point. Listening to her, watching her, and losing oneself in the process is as easy as it is pleasant.Still, applause was a problem. Clapping seems like the natural release for aesthetic enthusiasm, but who in Columbus, wants to feel goofy clapping for a singer 500 miles away? At first, the audience’s response was only slight, embarrassed, reflex clapping. Yet by the end of Act II, the rousing curtainclosing bass/baritone duet got a real, if moderate hand. We had given into the illusion, even at long distance.The intermissions were handled well, with interviews with Ms. Netrebko and some backstage peeks that opera buffs love. It was also fun to see how the singers performed (thumbs-up and little dances from Ms. Netrebko) coming back from curtain calls. Judging by the smiles and “wonderfuls” I overheard, the crowd was very happy to have spent the $18.Mr. Baumann is the Harry M. Clor Professor of Political Science at Kenyon College.

A Night at the Opera … With Nachos

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