Live From New York, It’s Mozart and Strauss: Could simulcasts at your local theater save the high arts, or sink them?
Live From New York, It’s Mozart and Strauss -
A smattering of applause rang out from the auditorium of the San Luis Obispo, California Performing Arts Center just past 10 o’clock one recent Saturday morning. The clapping grew louder for a few seconds and then trailed off, reflecting the hesitance of the 400 or so patrons on hand. It’s not that they felt ambivalent about maestro Maurizio Benini, who was making his way to the pit of the opera house to conduct The Elixir of Love. But he was in New York City, and their view inside Lincoln Center came from watching a live, high-definition simulcast on a huge screen. Is applause appropriate when the artist you admire is on the other side of the continent?
Understandably, the etiquette for the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series remains uncertain. After all, this is only its third season in San Luis Obispo, a quiet college town halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Met has been adding locations steadily since its first simulcast—a family-friendly version of The Magic Flute—beamed into cinemas on Dec. 30, 2006; they’re now seen in more than 1,700 theaters in 54 countries. Sensing an opportunity, other opera companies, dance troupes and the National Theatre of Great Britain have followed suit. For arts patrons outside big cities, there is no longer any need to travel to attend a world-class performance—or even to settle for the handful of artists who happen to tour near you in a given year.
Like the radio, the LP and the DVD before them, HD-quality simulcasts have spawned both wonder and worry in the arts community. Will these shows stimulate interest in the art form, introducing it to new audiences attracted by the low cost and informality? Or will they satiate fans, dampening their desire to buy tickets to full productions, and ultimately dooming local companies? Worst-case scenario: America returns to the era before the regional arts boom of the 1960s and 70s (fueled by the National Endowment for the Arts), when culture was largely produced in New York City and exported.