Barrie Kosky: Stop opera streaming
OperaThe Australian opera director has given voice today to what many have feared for years – that indiscriminate live streaming, free or paid, is killing off the opera experience.
Kosky is about to direct a new Ring cycle at Covent Garden. He is powerless to stop it going out to cinemas.
He told the Times: ‘Live stream and television HD of opera has been one of the biggest disasters. Now that I’m not an intendant I can say — my job is to bring people into the theatre for a live experience. And if they have to travel to do that, then they should travel to do that.’
He added: ‘I don’t think the payoff is big enough to say ‘we’re bringing opera to a huge audience’. It doesn’t work like that. They don’t come. We should not be encouraging people to see opera in two dimensions.’
He’s right. Blame the Met’s Peter Gelb for fostering the streaming delusion.
But how else should we know not to go and see his productions?
He wants to be booed in person, lol
All these regietheater directors are masochistic narcissists. Nothing hurts them more than a half-empty opera house, which is what they fear and deserve the most.
BK: “my job is to bring people into the theatre for a live experience. And if they have to travel to do that, then they should travel to do that.” Imagine if artists had this same ‘philosophy’ 100+ years ago when recordings first appeared. Not to mention only a small percentage of the population can AFFORD to travel- for opera, or sport, or most anything. Get off your elitist high horse (Grane.)
Yes such a blinkered view, reflecting his clear class and cultural privilege and oblivious to the living situation of most of the population.
What a ridiculous comment. Obviously a rich man who has no concept of how much travel and hotels cost if one is visiting London. What about the Met. not everyone can afford to fly to NY city etc. etc. Opera is not eletist and is for all but not according to this silly man. Having cinema performances means that people with no opera houses close by can see the best productions at an afforable price with only a car ride or a local bus or train to pay out for.
fully agree with your general judgment Mrs Oven!.
Although opera is an extremely vital and impressively emotional art, I would like to indicate Mr. Kosky the following factors.
1- There is only one fraction of one continent where almost anybody could see opera in a theater nearby. We all know where, we have worked there…
2- There are four (4) continents where there are some few opera theaters working some few weeks a year. That is it.
3- There is a big percentage of the world population that have never seen an opera live (either no money ,or else no theater near, or perhaps no idea of what an opera is, no publicity, no news, nothing where one is able to learn what is opera).
4- There is a good percentage of opera’s fans who like to go to theaters, and also like to see opera at home! both ways are good for them. Yes they are.
5- There is a very high percentage of the world population that do not have the financial means to get to see opera in a theater. I mean just money, simply that.
There are many more facts to be recognized and analyzed, but I will stop here… it is already long…
Whereas it would be hard to deny the above named factors , it is certainly understandable that Mr Kosky -most probably- does not belong to any fraction of the population described above, except for #4..
Sometimes I need to accept that most conductors/scene directors have not grown up in a place where there was no theater, or in a family that did not have an extra dime to pay the child an opera ticket. Yes there are lots of them too…
Well, that is my case, and I have worked in opera for my entire life…
It is hard to find empathy, or human understanding… perhaps that is the missing point in his unexplainable statement….
Very fair points. It does bear pointing out, with regard to your antepenultimate paragraph, that Barrie Kosky grew up in Australia.
The antepenultimate paragraph reads “Well, that is my case … “. And Mr Kosky does not come from Australia, he comes from Melbourne, which is different. He does, however, share a name with that celebrated Australian about town Barry Mackenzie, of blessed memory.
Is Mr Kosky for real? Many of us DO travel to the opera, but it’s expensive (hotel, train, tickets) and beyond the means of many who love opera.
Strange piece, this. At first glance, I thought it was saying that live-streaming is killing opera. But it doesn’t appear to be saying that. It seems to be saying that it’s giving audiences a diminished experience of opera. And that seems to be what Kosky is saying (‘opera in two dimensions’). But then it’s odd to say that his comments have ‘given voice… to what many have feared for years’. Either you think opera’s worth seeing/hearing in cinemas, or you don’t, and it’s hard to see why somebody else stating their view should validate or invalidate your view on the matter. So it seems a bit daft to say that it’s something ‘many have feared for years’, as though that fear has suddenly become more real. Perhaps we’re supposed to infer that people go to the cinema instead of going to the opera, and that audiences at the opera house are shrinking as a result. I suspect that would be difficult to demonstrate. A reason to leave the message unclear, perhaps. But all in all, rather odd.
Rheingold at ROH is largely sold out and at grossly inflated prices from what I can see. Perhaps NL is thinking about that audience who, unlike him, cannot afford the prices of the seats he sits in most Opera Houses. I mean, Opera is not for the great unwashed who might wear ‘smelly trainers’ but actually want to see it and for whom the local multiplex is their only option.
I don’t know where NL sits, but I do rather agree with your sentiment. I’ve experienced opera live at an opera house only rarely (single figures, and I’m no youngster). It was wonderful on each occasion. But I don’t much like going out, don’t care to travel far to ‘enjoy’ the going out that I don’t care for, and prefer not to spend much money on it. I went to a livestream of an opera at a cinema near me several years ago. It wasn’t quite the same thrill, but it was wonderful enough. I didn’t have to go far, went on my own (which seems not OK when going to the opera), didn’t spend much, and didn’t dress up at all. I was probably wearing smelly trainers. I’d do it all again.
I paid 14 quid for Rheingold
What are you on about?
The USA only has one full time opera house, the Met. Our next two biggest houses, Chicago and San Francisco, only have half year seasons. The USA only has 3 houses in the top 100 for opera performances per year. LA and Washington DC each have the equivalent of about a six week season. Chicago, LA, DC, Seattle, and Houston are outranked by little European cities most have never even heard of.
Most Americans would have to travel hundreds of miles to see an opera live. And the tickets are about 3.5 times higher than in Europe. The overall expense for travel, hotels and high priced ticketws is simply not an option.
Kosky is right, but opera in the USA is so rare and so expensive that streaming is the only option. I live about 90 minutes from the Santa Fe Opera, but it only has a 2 month season and the tickets are so expensive that I can’t afford a decent seat.
On top of all of this, American opera houses are so strongly oriented toward the wealthy that it is vulgar. One does not want to be around such trashiness. My wife and I just left Europe where there were 9 full time houses within two hours of where we lived. We knew we would likely never see a live opera again.
All valid points about opera in the US, but the point that most Americans would have to travel hundreds of miles to see an opera live — that deserves some perspective to keep us from seeming like a cultural backwater.
According to Opera America’s 2020 field report (https://www.operaamerica.org/media/omkfcgbo/2020-annual-field-report.pdf), 114 cities in the US have professional opera companies and 90% of the 50 largest US cities have opera companies. Lots of Americans have access to live opera, even if it’s not as fulsome as in Europe.
However, our big cities are so spread out that most Americans have to travel hundreds of miles just to get to the next cosmopolis. I can easily see/hear Dallas Opera and Fort Worth Opera productions, but I had to travel hundreds of miles to get to the first modern US production of Ethel Smyth’s “The Wreckers” at Houston Grand Opera — all those companies located in the great state of Texas. When I lived in Los Angeles, I could go to LA Opera or take in the alternative opera productions of Long Beach Opera, but it was a 400-mile drive to San Francisco Opera. America is big, but we do have lots of opera.
That’s not factually true.
About 80 percent of Americans live in a metropolitan area (urban/suburban/exurban).
There’s likely a an opera company in every metro area.
Many of these companies might only do 3 or 4 operas a year, but I suspect for many American opera fans, that’s more than enough live opera for them.
The mistake is measuring everything against the Met Opera. How many other opera houses in the world are full time and presents as many as 6 operas a week?
> How many other opera houses in the world are full time and presents as many as 6 operas a week?
Dozens! Especially in the German speaking areas of Europe. For example, Berlin, Vienna, and Munich have two opera houses each. And all of these six opera houses are full time and present as many as 6 opera performances a week.
Werner Lemberg’s point is valid but his statistics are wrong.
Berlin has four opera houses: (Staatsoper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Unter den Linden).
Munich also has four: (Bayerische Staatsoper, Cuvilliés Theatre, Prinzregententheater, Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz).
Vienna however has six venues for opera: (Wiener Staatsoper, Theater an der Wien, Wiener Volksoper, Neue Oper Wien, Schlosstheater Schönbrunn, and Wiener Kammeroper).
As a footnote, even Paris has four opera houses: (Opéra Bastille, Palais Garnier, Théâtre du Châtelet, Opéra-Comique).
Or five if you include the charming Théâtre-Olympique.
I should have written *at least*, sorry. However, for Vienna, two theatres is the right number: Only Wiener Staatsoper and Wiener Volksoper are »Repertoiretheater«, the Theater an der Wien is a classical staggione theatre, both Neue Oper Wien and Wiener Kammeroper have only a small number of productions with a limited number of performances, and finally the Schlosstheater Schönbrunn is more or less the theatre for productions of the Vienna University of Music, also having quite a limited number of performances.
+Théâtre des Champs Élysées et Opéra Versailles…
We ARE a cultural backwater given our size and population and your statistics reflect that.
Nothing is stopping any US city or state from setting up and subsidizing as many full-time opera houses as they want.
Baloney. Americans aren’t even given a choice to vote for comprehensive public arts funding like every other developed country has. Name one politician advocating such support for the arts?
100% correct.
There aren’t any, of course. Anywhere. Even in the most Leftist enclaves full of slobbering Europhiles.
There’s a broad, bipartisan national consensus on this: there’s no interest at all in public support of the arts on a European model. It isn’t even a subject of conversation anywhere among anyone. It’s never been part of our history because we’ve never had an absolutist monarchy or a mass of petty principalities with their court entertainment for the nobility.
Or maybe it’s because ordinary members of the public come to this site and see the contempt that musicians have for their audiences in general and for Americans in particular. Way to build support for your cause, guys.
Chip on the shoulder, much, @Greg Hlatky? But in view of your rabid anti-European remarks, I might just say that it’s where most of the operas have been produced, and that precious little has been originated where you come from.
“It isn’t even a subject of conversation anywhere among anyone [in the USA.]” As if that were just a natural coincidence and not a systemic manifestation of engineering public thought along the lines of unmitigated capitalism. Sort of like the days when people didn’t care about child labor, slavery, that women couldn’t vote, and that lynching was a regular part of Jim Crow. How democratic!
Well Greg, prickly language aside……I think your analysis of the cultural, politico/historic aspect of Europe v US with regards to the thorny subject of Opera or complete absence thereof, is correct (and geography plays a not insignificant part)
It’s so ironic how opera in the USA is so deeply oriented toward high society, and yet the orientation toward the wealthy is the perfect embodiment of American trashiness.
What pathetic nonsense. Shall we outlaw internet streaming too? And recordings as well, now that we’re at it? “We should not be encouraging people to hear symphonies in their car”?
And “if they have to travel to do that, then they should travel to do that.” Really? Where does Mr. Kosky live? How unbelievably arrogant and privileged do you have to be to make such a statement?
I’m lucky. I live in the center of Europe, within a 4 hour driving distance of literally dozens of opera houses. But people in Asia, Africa, large parts of Europe and most of the America’s don’t. So they should not be allowed to watch opera unless they take two days off, and book travel and a hotel?
Of course streaming brings opera to a huge audience. Not to a NEW audience, for sure, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. On the other hand, there is not a single shred of evidence that streaming keeps audiences away from theatres. None.
I’m sick and tired of all the amateuristic “analyses” of the so-called declining public for opera. I go to 40 – 50 opera performances every year, in Belgium, Holland, France, Germany and sometimes other European countries, and I almost never sit in a theatre that isn’t 80% or (most of the times) 90% full. Yesterday, I tried to book a ticket for Lohengrin in Strasbourg. Not the Met, de Opéra national, Covent Garden, no: Strasbourg. Ticket sales started at 10am, I got in at 10:10, and the entire stalls were sold out – as were most of the balconies. And there’s no big secret as to how you achieve that: excellence.
So Mr. Kosky, go back to work and come up with an excellent production. Oh, and while you’re at it, tell your employers at Covent Garden to lower their disgustingly high ticket prices. If there’s one thing that keeps people from going to the opera, that’s the one.
Absolutely! It’s a 6 hours drive through mountain passes from my Interior BC home town to a closest regional opera that gives only 4 operas a year. To fly to a decent opera house I have to spend at least a couple of thousands of dollars for a trip. If I don’t see opera in two dimensions, I don’t see it at all!
@Clem – Barrie Kosky mostly does come up with excellent productions. I suspect the problem is more that you wouldn’t know one if you saw it. He is not responsible for the prices charged by the ROH, but I doubt they have a vested interest in charging more than they need.
I’m so glad he’s also come up with an alternative financial solution.
Wait, doesn’t this site stream operas for its members? If you think he’s right, then why are you doing what you think is wrong?
Let’s hope it doesn’t stop, as it allowed me the best Flying Dutchman I have ever seen. I went to every live opera I could everywhere I have ever been but I no longer live within striking range of a company and mobility issues have made travel virtually impossible for me. This man does not seem to appreciate that there are a variety of circumstances that prevent those not fortunate to live cheek by jowl with opera houses may still want to maintain the interest they developed in many different ways. Would he suggest also stopping Live from the Met, which I listened to on radio for many years?
He is absolutely right. Some of us predicted this would not go well over 15 years ago. Television was one thing…HD broadcasts are another. Countless small and regional opera companies have been damaged greatly by the broadcasts of the big boys. Internet opera has done the same thing. The genie was let out of the bottle…and the art form was damaged seemingly beyond repair.
It is worth pondering why Met broadcasts would damage small companies. Are the smaller companies programming operas that are less interesting/enticing? Are their productions less interesting/enticing? Cognizant of budget disparities, though, if either of these is the case, then those companies should have already been catering better to audiences.
If you want someone to pick your product over someone else’s you have to make them want it – not complain that you have a competitor.
Smaller companies do not have the resources of a company like the Met. They also can’t hire the same quality of singers…but have often been the place where younger singers try out roles and get their grounding. Much training goes on there. But audiences want “bigger and better” and so are bypassing the smaller companies and going for the cheaper HD broadcasts. This is hurting training experiences for singers and live experiences for audiences as companies have had to cut back while their audiences are going to movie theaters to enjoy popcorn and the show.
Where are these opera companies?
I can talk only about what I know, in London we have Opera Holland Park, then outside London we have several outstanding small opera companies headed by Glyndebourne.
They are doing fine, the NY Met isn’t destroying them, if anything broadcasts wet the appetite of people that perhaps wouldn’t go otherwise to such venues.
Kosky is doing a disservice to opera by trying to drag it back into the elitism from where it had been dragged out kicking and screaming (it is such a relief that one can sit with smart casual clothes in Vienna, Milan, London or NY and nobody bats an eyelid).
Just imagine somebody considering an approach to opera and the first thing they find is somebody telling them they are quasi philistines for watching in a screen.
They are not watching opera…they are watching a film representation of opera. They are not getting the acoustical reality of a live performance or singer as well. And I know of multiple companies in the US that have been hurt by these broadcasts. Why pay Met prices (or even local prices) if you can get the product for a small percentage of the amount. But yet, those viewers are often turning around and donating to local companies or even to the Met.
and your evidence for these claims are where?
The art form is being damaged primarily by the overwhelming mediocrity of the current generation of performers (musicians, directors etc.) compared to their predecessors.
Kosky is wrong. Sure for people who live in cities that have opera companies, seeing them live, in 3D, is fine. When the lights go down and the stage comes alive…it is a magical experience that cannot be replicated on a screen. However…many of us live in places where attending live opera just isn’t going to happen. Some of us have disabilities and ailments that prevent travel. In the US, the prominent opera companies are in New York, Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. As things stand now, every one of those cities is a crap hole that are kind of dangerous and undesirable. Bring on streaming! For decades, most of us in fly-over country listened to the Met on the Texaco opera broadcasts – and it was audio only.
A soundtrack of my youth.
For non-Fox News viewers (including the vast majority of NYC residents) New York is still a very safe and exciting city, the safest large city in the U.S. People don’t agree to pay rents of $5,000 a month for one bedroom apartments to live in a “craphole”. Don’t you conservatives believe in the “logic of the marketplace” anymore?
Based on my Met HD experiences in NW Indiana, I can say that the audience, not large, mainly consists of senior citizens who could get to opera in Chicago, but only with difficulty and expense. Many are former subscribers of Lyric Opera, etc. I don’t know how many may still support the opera with actual monetary donations. But they are able to enjoy opera in the cinema. So it’s a difficult question. There are hardly any younger people, so it seems not to be “attracting a new audience”
“indiscriminate live streaming, free or paid, is killing off the opera experience” Is this just a (sincerely-held) opinion or is it a data-driven conclusion? Have we proven whether people are actively choosing streaming over live or if, on the contrary, they wouldn’t have gone to the live performance anyway (for a number of reasons: distance, cost, convenience, etc.)?
And what is this opera experience that is being killed exactly – the experience of the people choosing streaming? (Are we really going to tell people ‘you are enjoying opera wrong’?)
As an aside, talking about the ‘opera experience’ and not encouraging people to ‘see opera in two dimensions’ is a bit rich when so many productions manage to attract audiences *despite* their off-putting staging, not because of it.
Spoken like a true Art Dickhead who thinks that Jo Public is there to meet his and operas needs and not the other way around. Is it any wonder that classical music and opera are treated with disdain by the majority when this kind of attitude pervades the “art cognoscenti”.
Mr Kosky is from upper middle class privately-educated Melbourne. The sense of entitlement and natural superiority assumed by these people has to be experienced to be believed.
Out of touch take. Audiences would be worse off, especially in today’s climate, if they didn’t have access to streaming classical performances to help spark their interest in the first place.
Finally, someone is saying it. The streaming model has been killing the art form.
Over promoted and over-hyped mediocrities like Netrebko and so many of her fellow Russians are what’s killing it. And the loss of great singers in general.
He needs to get back from whatever planet he was commenting from. My relatives abroad have never attended an opera, but after watching Met streams they fell in love with it and even started traveling to Germany and other European countries to attend live performances. That would have never happened without streams. Also, he might conduct a reality check and find out how expensive it is to attend a Met performance. For anyone who needs to drive or fly to NYC it is *at least* a $1k expense per weekend for 2 people factoring in transportation and an overnight hotel stay.
he’s 100% detached from reality: the golden boy of European opera: even when he directs boring crap or simply resorts to pathetic campery (which he does over and over and over) – the press fawn all over it. he is flavor of the moment. nothing more. he sounds upset his tight little Ring will be broadcast because – if rumors are correct from inside the ROH, it’s not so good already. no doubt the press will throw 5 stars all over it just because – he is Their creation.
I think the opposite is true: no streaming, no future audiences. I stream and HD theater the ones I can’t get to the live show to see, it’s a godsend for those with FOMO.
Comments like these are predicated on the false premise that ticket buyers don’t have agency, that they are somehow being forced to attend streaming concerts over in-person concerts.
Instead of casting blame, how about being introspective and thinking why is it that ticket buyers are opting for streaming over in-person concerts?
People like Kosky are tone deaf to the fact that most opera patrons are not rich, that when people attend the opera they want to sit in seats with good sight lines which are expensive, and thus, streaming fills an important need for many patron.
Further, flat and declining attendance is a problem for almost all forms of entertainment, including sports. But I suppose we can blame all of that on Gelb too.
People like Kosky seemingly believe that if you reduce or eliminate streaming/HD screenings as an option, then people will naturally be forced to go to the live performance. Of course, they forget that not going at all is also an option people have…
By Kosky’s logic, if two-dimension opera (streaming) should be forbidden, then one-dimension opera (audio recordings) should definitely forbidden.
By Lebrecht’s logic, if the Met is to be blamed for live streaming to cinemas, then the Met should be blamed for bringing live broadcasts to radios.
By both their luddite logic, let’s wipe out all technological progress since the invention of opera from Monteverdi’s time, no houses bigger than those built in the 1600’s, especially none of Wagner’s acoustic and architectural ideas for his Bayreuth theater experience.
… and what about all those ‘dreadful’ piano reductions of orchestral compositions during the 19th century? Abominations!
In a Radio 3 broadcast Sir Nicholas Kenyon, himself quoting someone else, said “We need a revival of period strings as much as we need a revival of period dentistry..” . Zayin, in tracing the application of luddite logic backwards and arriving at plainly nonsensical conclusions, puts his/her finger on the issue. It is the ‘authentic’ music problem again, now sullied by its implied social purpose of keeping high culture as a kind of Holy Grail for the rich and entitled. I am not very interested in streamed performances and don’t watch shows on my iPhone. But I’m very glad that these things are there for people who do enjoy them, whether or not they act as a gateway to live performances in the opera house. Despite the unspecified ‘interesting ideas’ often referred to in woolly reviews of Kosky’s ROH Carmen, it wasn’t an audience puller and is being scrapped already. Deservedly so in my opinion. The King hath no clothes. Seeing that abomination put me off buying a ticket for Kosky’s new Rheingold. Only super reviews and demonstrable audience appeal will make me change my mind.
Barry Kosky is somebody that sometimes one wonders if he likes opera at all.
He has many great ideas but, and this is the elephant in the room sized big but, it would appear he thinks the music, and at times even the singing, should play second fiddle to his stagings that often are noisy beyond what is acceptable, musical directors nor artistic directors put their foot down to temper his worse excesses because it seems younger naive audiences are attracted to his approach of showing opera instead of singing it, playing it *and* showing it.
So it is no wonder that somebody artistically so full of himself believes that his stagings should be treated like some kind of rite of passage for the moderately wealthy.
Without the Met broadcasts (and many others) we wouldn’t have access to many operas, specially in poorer countries in which such lavish stagings are unthinkable.
This who writes got engaged into opera not by going to the opera house, which in my country is a very rare pleasure, but by watching Billy Budd in an old TV screen and later Aida in a projection in a park.
Kosky may be a great director (mmmh) but he isn’t a great defender of the art, so perhaps he should concentrate his efforts where his talents are better valued and leave diffusion to the professionals.
Two dimensions? Why stop at opera let’s drop TV and cinema then and stick exclusively with live theater.
And forget watching the Olympics unless you can go there…
And forget watching the Olympics unless you can go there…
So basically he argues, we should forget about the movies, and go to see plays in the theater instead, since, well, diminished experience, two dimensionality and such…
Well, he‘s not even wrong there, but…
What about riding horses instead of using cars? Certainly the immersion in nature‘s forces is much higher on a horse‘s back.
Amen, Barrie!
And no, don’t blame Gelb. That’s too convenient. Streaming and the nauseating “opera in the movie theatre” experience have many parents going back in time…
I am old and disabled. I have been an opera lover for 60 years. (And not just an amateur……I did my Ph.D on Wagner). Am I now to be deprived of my reason for continuing to live?
“We should not be encouraging people to see opera in two dimensions.”
I would enjoy experiencing a 3D video version of the opera charged with Dolby atmos.
As far as his productions are concerned, it does not make any difference. Unless there is a pay-to-watch option. That is, pay the audience.
Such an elitist, out-of-touch tract. Hotel, airfare, the incredibly expensive tickets – simply not possible for many of us. I guess I should throw away all my recordings, too. At least this article gave everyone here another opportunity to trash Peter Gelb. It’s been several days now so I’m sure you all needed the release.
I can’t imagine Stokowski suggesting people who might like music travel to Philadelphia or some other city with a Symphony orchestra. No, instead he did Fantasia and brought hundreds of thousands of people to an interest in, and even love of, classical music. I guess Kosky thinks people from Alice Springs should fly to Sydney to see his productions. I am fairly certain there are multiple Australian phrases that might differ with that view………….and for the record, Gelb is right about streaming (even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut).
I’ll bet Stokowski reached millions with Fantasia. Over the years, I can’t count how many people I’ve heard mention things like the changing of the season in “Waltz of the Flowers,” dinos in “The Rite of Spring, and hippos in “Dance of the Hours” …
This is appalling nonsense. If you want great numbers of people to enjoy ROH productions, you must make it more affordable. For us, as pensioners, to travel from Edinburgh to London and stay a night in a hotel, would cost us at least £1,000 including tickets and food. That is simply not manageable on an OAP. This man is clueless!
Why don’t we bring back the patronage system as well given the regressive thinking on display here?
And perhaps on a more granular level, even if we accept the premise that one should travel for opera productions, should one travel for Kosky’s productions? I think not.
This is so short-sighted. Opera needs to increase their audience base, not make opera even more inaccessible than it already is. The average age of opera goers is one foot in a coffin and the other in a banana peel.
The Times article has 15 paragraphs, 14 of them very interesting observations on modern productions, exploring Kosky’s relationship with Wagner’s music and so on. Well worth reading.
One paragraph deals with streaming opera into cinema, which is all that commenters seem to be interested in.
The article isn’t available to most of us so we respond to what is reported. As to that, Kosky’s comments about streaming seem to be trolling. He didn’t seem to object to his productions being streamed during lockdown.
The problem with so many contemporary opera productions and the casting agents is that they aspire to BE two dimensional.
The look of a singer is more important than their ability. The productions are unattractive and seldom offer the escapism and fantasy the original works were conceived as.
Theatre doesn’t attempt to be film or television. Why are opera directors trying to make opera compete with film.
The solutions to getting more bums into seats is to focus on the elements that make opera different, standout from film and television: the music.
Kosky should focus his complaints on the work within the opera houses.
Streaming isn’t killing opera. Maybe the free streams from the pandemic could be rolled back. Houses don’t even consider paying the performers for the streaming. And that is a whole other can of worms.
There is an intimacy that can be captured in the delicate balance of one voice soaring over an orchestra, a figure on a stage standing in front a packed house. Film and television cannot do that. Not ever.
I don’t fully agree. There’s many people who don’t feel comfortable in crowds, especially indoor crowds, but want the experience of seeing/listening to opera. I’m one of those types of people. I hate dealing with the theater crowds before and after. I’d much rather watch in the comfort of my own home. I love outdoor crowds, but I hate indoor crowds.
While in person is quite unique, the theater arts need to be flexible with modern times.
Indeed. The Live HD screenings at the cinema at Lincoln Center are very popular, especially with senior citizens. For not much less than the cost of a Family Circle seat one can have a more comfortable and less crowded experience.
If I can visit a live opera without having to be away from home for more than 12 hours, and at a total cost of less than £200, I will. That is as much as my responsibilities and financial situation allow. In the meantime I watch live streams. I miss out on the overall experience but I value the detail and subtleties that can be seen in closeup but not in person.
Just another excuse to get another dig in at Peter Gelb. As if people living in the vast majority of the U.S. (and the hinterlands in other countries) have any local access to all to major or even minor opera houses.
Streaming does NOT mean video linking live productions to selected cinemas, as the Met has been doing for a few years now. Netflix is streaming. Disney is streaming. ROH Stream and Glyndebourne Encore are also streaming. You pay a subscription, you download an app, you log in, and you stream the performance to your own device in your own house in your own time. That is how I was able to watch Mr Kosky’s clever-dick “Carmen” from Canberra, twelve thousand miles away.
Opera houses and concert halls should be welcoming streaming, as a means of extending their audiences and, importantly, making more money.
This is disgraceful. The ONLY way I can get to see opera, concerts, theatre…..any performance…..is via livestream, or YouTube, ARTE and OPERA AND VIDEO. I am old and disabled….on a good day I can walk to the village with my walking frame. Am I to lose the only thing that makes my existence bearable?
I look forward to seeing Kosky in what he would no doubt categorise as a ‘provincial’ theatre bringing opera to us. In my dreams! £325 in the best seats , £146 in the Amphitheatre to see Rheingold at ROH! Kosky has been fortunate in being based in Germany where Opera is much more accessible and affordable. He needs to get his head out of his **** before he shouts his big mouth off about bringing what he does to an audience that can actually afford it! I’ve booked to see the live relay at my local multiplex which, if I were to travel to Covent Garden with a necessary overnight stay would cost me roughly me 20 times what I am paying. Probably something that barely registers with him and those in Floral St who my taxes in part allow to do what they do but which I have no real time access to.
Kosky is no doubt expressing a personal opinion, though one it seems shared by SD. What, I wonder do ROH think about what he has to say. After all, they are probably the most culturally elite tax funded Arts organisation in this country and given their pricing structure certainly the most expensive. Before the latest ACE cuts, even Glyndebourne toured and a visit there us less expensive than Covent Garden.
What a horrible statement. Also, untrue. Once I started following opera streaming, I also started traveling a few times a year to watch live operas. I am lucky to be able to afford it, but this elitist attitude is (or should be) the opposite of opera.
Wow. I am surprised at how many disagree with Barrie. He may be best appreciated from a distance, but he is a smart man and well worth listening too.
I agree with him 100%. Videos create the expectation of close-ups, something you don’t get in the theater. They distort stagings as the image of the stage is lost, and especially after Corona, run the risk of replacing the live experience for an audience too lazy (and fearful) to leave the couch.
Also, singers make very ugly faces while making beautiful sounds.
The real risk is that we will all end up experiencing the world through our Smartphones–just like every 15-year-old.
Thank you so much for focussing on the problem that I also have with opera screenings (‘close-ups, image of the stage lost, ugly faces’). For me radio relays are the better alternative if I can’t get to a performance in person . I do enjoy ballet screenings, where close-ups enrich the experience, with much of the full stage, real theatre feel still preserved because ballet also demands a pulled-back shooting approach. I’m lucky enough to live within walking distance of London’s two opera houses, but I am very poor and only buy the cheapest seats and standing places. If I had to travel I would never go at all, so, despite my personal reservations about opera screenings I am totally behind the majority who find Kosky’s casual élitism and scorn for the circumstances of real people contemptible.
Typical „let them eat cake“ comment by someone who lives in a bubble or ivory tower. (and lives usually in major metropolitan areas with easy access to high quality opera houses)
Sorry but he’s right, it also doesn’t help that all the broadcasts in cinema are at 11 am on a Saturday. Who in the world wants to get up early on a weekend to watch 3 hours of screeching?!?!?
Also Sprach Barriekosky
Just done a quick check, selecting a random midweek date later this month, deciding to claim discount rail cards the train fare for 2 from Cumbria to London is, circa, £130 (rail unions permitting travel) return, one night in a cheap chain hotel £240, then every cuppa, morsel of food and, heaven forbid, an alcoholic drink before or after the performance. Without trying hard this can very easily exceed £500 extra outlay compared to the cost for people living in London.
Now how does this compare to regular visits to a venue that streams opera, ballet and concerts for under £20 per person and is a half hour drive away? Not encouraging to travel to London, is my response.
I go to a venue that regularly streams opera, ballet and concerts that costs a lot less than twenty pounds per person and is 30 seconds walk away. It’s my living room.
Pricey to fly to Europe or the US from your old home Barrie and the tickets are also non on the costly side.may streaming and cinema options long flourish
Is he opposed to the sale of opera CDs and DVDs too?
This is not in any event ‘live’ streaming, some recent showings I have attended have been up to a year old, yet a premium price has been demanded. Widening the audience is laudable, conning them isnt, and as your feature comments , this in no way a ‘live’experience.
He may be right (I disagree) but he’s still a lousy director
Live streaming in a cinema got me into opera in the first place. Since then I have been lucky enough to travel to the Met and other fabulous places to see opera live as it were. I agree it is a different experience but both have their place.
When at the Met I missed seeing what was going on in the background and chats to the singers etc.
Not everyone has an unlimited budget for the opera, although I suspect BK is happy to keep it this way.
Open it up to everyone is my view.
Ask me 10 years ago to go and see an opera I would have turned my nose up, now I travel to many festival operas and have been highly impressed….. my wallet is lighter but I’m loving them.
What nonsense! Taking opera to the people in whatever form is wonderful. Perhaps Barrie Kosky wants us to give up our mobile phones and ride horse and cart to the opera. Fighting against progress in whatever form, never works. Instead we have to find ways to work with progress and use it to our advantage.
The scientific question is, how do you calculate the net gain or loss from HD streaming opera to those:
A. who would/could never travel to the opera (gain in subscription revenue)
B. Those who might have made the effort, but definitely won’t if the option to view in 2D is available (gain in subscription revenue, potential loss of live revenue)
C. Those for whom the 2D experience exposes, educates and inspires them towards the live experience (gain in subscription, potential gain in live revenue)
My parents belong to A. They live in the wilds of Northumberland. They are elderly. The MET subscription has brought untold happiness to them. They particularly love the backstage interviews and other add-ons. I set them up with a good amplifier and floor-standing speakers, and they have consumed everything available. They watched Akhenaten several times! Loved it! Whenever they are in London, they try to get to some sort of concert or gallery, but it’s not practical for them. They always attend Opera North productions in Newcastle, and whatever is on at the Sage, Gateshead, like Stephen Hough’s recent recital there.
So, I would say the empirical truth lies somewhere between the cracks of an emotional argument, and requires additional questions; what effect has Covid had on our habits? How do other narrative artforms, like TV series, alter lifestyle choices and create competition for live art in general? And, to what extent is cost really a factor in determining how people spend their time? Remember, Taylor Swift is still selling out stadia around the world at prices far higher than the most expensive seat in any opera house. It is a nonsense to continue claiming that opera is only for the rich. The broad, democratized masses are choosing to spend money, and large amounts of it, on sectors other than classical music. So the money is there. Is the will? And, if not, how do we change that?
There’s a slight difference between springing for a Taylor Swift concert, which is a once-in-a-blue-moon event in any given place, and becoming an opera- or concert-goer, where, notionally, you go more often. I have not been to the Canadian Opera Company lately, but taking a look at the autumn offerings, I found the prices eye-watering compared to the last time. Certainly beyond the means of many, as Elton John Farewell Tour tickets were beyond mine.
“He is powerless to stop it going out to cinemas.” Jesus f in Christ. He is powerless to keep it for a small section of society who live in or near London or who can afford to travel there. He is powerless to stop me seeing it although I still have to contribute to the vast subsidy given to the ROH. He is powerless to stop this great work from being seen by more elderly, disabled and othwise challenged individuals.
Well thank goodness for that. Directors such as he already have too much power. What a hunt.