If you were curious about the Next Big Thing in opera, you Web sites of leading companies and up-and-coming stars.
multiplex on a Saturday morning.
Onegin," featuring Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Renee Fleming in the lead roles.
Some were momentarily ticket window, but no problem: when the 428-seat Auditorium 1 filled up, management opened up another to accommodate the screens from Britain to Japan, part of an initiative to expand audiences by the Met's new general director, Peter Gelb, the controversial former head of Sony Classical. Even this early -- the first simulcast, "The Magic Flute," produced by Julie Taymor, was just two months opera since the introduction of supertitles.
perfect: The sound was OK but not great, and the overflow theater was chilly.
But in some respects, the movie theater beats the opera house. Deft camerawork in particular takes In the final scene of "Eugene Onegin," when (spoiler alert!) the callow Onegin was rejected by his former admirer Tatiana, the theater audience saw Hvorostovsky and Fleming in extreme close-up, their faces strikingly minimalist set.
If you were in the theater audience, you also got some bonus features. Before the opera, you could see Met patrons taking their seats as you were taking yours, but at intermission, you also got to see Beverly Sills chatting with the singers, Live opera broadcasts are nothing new, of course; the Met and video. But the combination, especially in high definition on a big screen, is magic.
Most important, the experience, and even to stand and applaud at the magnificent of an actual opera house, and it will be fascinating to see how the Met's new outreach changes the face of opera, and opera audiences, in years to come.
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