Underworld.(Opera review)

On a recent Saturday morning, I drove out to Moosic, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Scranton, to see the Metropolitan Opera. The detour was necessitated by a venture that Peter Gelb has launched in his first season as the general manager of the Met: a series of live, high-definition broadcasts of Saturday-matinee performances, shown at movie theatres across the country. The idea sounded a little daft when it was announced last year: how could a nearly four-hour-long showing of Puccini's "Il Trittico" compete with the likes of "Disturbia" at a suburban multiplex? In fact, Theatre 1 at the Cinemark 20 in Moosic was mostly full, and a similarly robust crowd watched the same transmission in Theatre 2, next door. Out of curiosity, I poked my head into a theatre showing "Disturbia"; it was half empty. So it has gone with the H.D. broadcasts all season: each weekend they have been shown, they have consistently counted among the twenty highest-grossing films in America, and have often bested Hollywood's proudest blockbusters on a per-screen, per-day average. Such figures are a timely slap in the face to media companies that have written off classical music as an art with no mass appeal.

The broadcasts have thrived, in part, because they are exceptionally well produced. Nothing can replace the thrill of unamplified voices filling a room, but adroit camerawork can improve upon the less felicitous imaginings of opera directors. The recent "Il Trittico," which was directed in big-budget Broadway style by Jack O'Brien, with sets by Douglas Schmidt, created an imposing look for each of the installments in Puccini's trilogy--an early-twentieth-century Parisian canal for "Il Tabarro," a luminously ancient nunnery for "Suor Angelica," a cobwebbed Florentine palace for "Gianni Schicchi"--but it lacked intimacy and dramatic focus onstage. In the movie theatre, with closeups, tracking shots, and other cinematic tricks, it had more punch, and touches that had initially struck me as campy (the apparition of Sister Angelica's dead child, for instance) went down better with popcorn and soda. The sound was generally fine, lacking the bass bloat that ruins orchestral movie scores these days. And the intermissions were filled with sprightly features: backstage tours, a talk between O'Brien and James Levine, and a mini-documentary on the Met's National Council Auditions, for young singers around the country ("I'm going to New York!" the forceful baritone Ryan McKinny exclaimed into his cell phone, a la "American Idol").

No sooner did the H.D. phenomenon take off than opera traditionalists started worrying that the technology would distort musical values. They have forecast a dire era of photographable faces and forgettable voices mixed with outbreaks of crossover kitsch. The danger certainly exists--music lovers have not forgotten that when Gelb ran the Sony Classical label he blemished the universe with James Horner's "Titanic" soundtrack--but I'm guessing that the broadcasts will ultimately favor singers who can sing and act, rather than those who simply look good on posters. The standout member of the "Trittico" cast, both in the house and at the movies, was Stephanie Blythe, a not quite svelte woman who commands attention with the clarion beauty of her voice and the blunt intensity of her presence. If, as rumor has it, some Met veterans are investing in plastic surgery and crash diets, they'd do better to buy acting lessons.

Whatever missteps and controversies await Gelb, he has had a remarkably successful first season. Attendance has been up (the entire last week of performances in May sold out); crowds are more diverse in age; future plans for casting and repertory seem sound. To the blinking astonishment of a lot of people in the music field, the Met administration has thrown off its deep-seated caution and adopted the mentality of a scrappy newcomer. With Gerard Mortier, the scandal-making European intendant, set to take over City Opera, New York opera seems set to enter an anything-goes era, and the disasters may be as entertaining as the triumphs.

One point of tension in the approaching Met-City Opera showdown may be this: who will get Mark Morris? In the late eighties, Mortier, while running the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, in Brussels, gave Morris the ...