greg@olivej.UUCP (Greg Paley) (02/03/84)
This is prompted by the PBS telecast of the Met's production of Verdi's "Don Carlo". Even though I love the opera, and have enjoyed performances in opera houses with much less distinguished casts, I don't find much enjoyment in these productions on TV. The exceptions seem to be those productions which were originally conceived as TV or movie productions and take advantage of settings which would be impossible on a real operatic stage. These latter productions are always dubbed in advance, so that the singers can concentrate on the visual aspect of what they're doing. Certainly, this lacks spontaneity, but what I tend to see on the telecasts of "live" performances is not so much spontaneity as nervousness and broken concentration caused by the need to play to audience and camera simultaneously. Furthermore, for some reason the sound (by this I mean the FM stereo simulcast rather than limited TV sound) never seems to reach the level of strictly audio broadcasts. I have to blame this for the fact that on last night's telecast, voices which I heard as worn, frayed and often hard-edged were being cheered deliriously by the audiences present. I can't really imagine that anyone who doesn't like or know about opera is going to be convinced otherwise by these telecasts, although this is often advanced as a justification for them. Considering the tremendous expense involved, and that the stations carrying these are publicly supported, I think a good deal more investigation should go into the choice of works and productions being telecast and the manner in which they're done. Naturally, I have a number of ideas on the subject, but will only go into them if anyone else is interested. Greg Paley