Manon Lescaut

[chickenfeet]

Today was the first part of my Christmas present. We have tickets for five performances from the Met screened in HD live via satellite at a local cinema. Today was Puccini's Manon Lescaut. I thought I didn't like Puccini. I was wrong. The third act in particular was utterly and spectacularly brilliant. When opera is this good it's the ultimate. It really is.

The show was fun. They fill up the Met's very long intervals with backstage interviews with the singers, the conductor and the tech director leaving a 15 minute break in the cinema. It was very well done. The sound and picture quality was really excellent and it was on the biggest screen at the Scotiabank theatre so it was about as big as cinema screens get. It's not quite the same as being in the theatre but it's surprisingly close. Five performances cost less than an OK single performance ticket for the COC so it's a pretty good deal.

The rest of the season is Peter Grimes, La Boheme, La Fille du Regiment and Tristan und Isolde. Should be fun.

Comments

[zantic.livejournal.com]

Ohhh. La Boheme was the second bit of opera I experienced. (The Romans at Carthage was the first, and that was an evening out with my Latin class, and as such, YAWN) Everything a teenage girl could ever want - love, romance, tragedy, singing and much much ham.

You got good present!

Z

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Now *that's* a good present!

People do knock Puccini, but with a good performance, it can sweep you away. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Also, thanks very much for the recommendation (and also for the info about the intervals - I remember the Met's intervals from radio broadcasts!). You've made me check it out and discover that our local arts picturehouse is screening them, too. I think I'll go and look at my diary...

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I have been listening to Opera from the Met on radio off and on for years. I've only ever been to one live performance, by the Vancouver Opera Company. Don Giovanni, I think it was.
I know there is a theatre that shows the Live from the Met performances here..maybe I'll go myself one day soon.

[owlfish]

I quite liked their live broadcast of Hansel and Gretel we saw in early January (when in Arkansas). I hadn't realized that there would be a 15 minute real break and so missed out some of the other interviews, thinking the whole real intermission would be filled with them - and then was disappointed that there weren't more!