On Oct. 9, the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Richard Wagner’s legendary “Das Rheingold” was shown at Cairo Opera House’s Small Theater.
The live, high definition simulcast drew in an almost full house of the capital’s opera goers. This season marks the fifth year of the Met’s “Live in HD” project; 11 more performance simulcasts are scheduled to be broadcast in movie theaters across the world.
“The program was developed as a mean to reach existing audiences and to introduce new ones to opera through new technology,” the Met website states.
Cinematic technology, once a fatal threat to the livelihood of live performing arts, is now being utilized to foster a new interest for opera. Of course it is obvious that the Met contracts the world’s premiere opera singers, directors and musicians. The draw of stars like Bryn Terfel and Stephanie Blythe in “Das Rheingold,” or Anna Netrebko, Natalie Dessay, Diana Damrau, Renée Fleming, and Dmitri Hvorovstovsky, all scheduled to appear this season alone, is indisputable.
Still, the cinematic broadcast of the live performance could itself be the solution to opera’s problem of retaining and attracting interest from contemporary, attention-deficient audiences.
“Das Rheingold” is the first in Wagner’s epic four-part “Ring” cycle and the gargantuan magnitude of Robert Lapage’s production would have made the composer proud. The entire set consists of enormous rotating panels which shift to represent a variety of worlds in the “Ring” universe, from the highest heavens inhabited by the gods to the fiery depths of the Nibelung dwarves.
Advanced lighting techniques enrich the magical atmosphere and the actors’ movement is no longer confined to just the stage. Magical creatures captivate their viewer’s eyes and ears as they float through water and fly through the air suspended on cables.
It is in many ways, more exciting and enjoyable to watch the simulcast on the big screen than the back-of-the-balcony seats the same money could buy at a live performance in New York.
The Met’s website states: “The Met: Live in HD is for everyone. The productions are chosen to represent a variety of styles and the full range of the Met repertoire and artists…Many people tell us that it is a perfect, low-risk way to introduce a reluctant opera goer to the art form.”
In Egypt though, the achievement of this lofty objective is jeopardized by two factors in particular: price and language.
First, the prices of the simulcast are disproportionate to typical cinema prices, a contrast to the declared intent of the Met’s program. This is not an issue exclusively in Cairo. Here, the tickets ranged from LE 100-150. In Paris, the prices were at €30 (LE 238). No discounts were available.
In the meantime, the Metropolitan Opera itself offers plenty of reduced prices for students, senior citizens, etc. A trip to the Met for a live performance could cost a student in the US about LE 113. For an American student, this may not be an outrageous amount. However, would an Egyptian student from Cairo University be able to afford the trip to the simulcast? Would a middle class Egyptian be able to do the same thing?
Howaida Eid, executive coordinator in the artistic director’s office at the Opera House, commented in an email: “The price is not really the problem…what makes the difference is the culture [in Egypt]. Opera performances do not make up a part of our culture…we have to elaborate a long term plan in collaboration with schools and universities to introduce opera and classical music to a wider range of kids and youth in order to familiarize the new generation to these fine arts.”
A look around the audience in the Small Hall on Saturday night was indicative of today’s typical opera audience. The average age was probably somewhere around 50. Haute couture suits and gowns abounded. Most of them, even the Egyptians, spoke to one another in French and English.
This linguistic division between the type of person that goes to the opera today and the type of person that resides in Egypt was underscored not only by the casual chatter in the audience. It was reinforced by the fact that the subtitles of the German production were shown exclusively in English. In other words, it was expected that those in attendance would know English well enough to be able to follow the work without difficulty.
Of note is the fact that the actual Metropolitan Opera performance can be enjoyed in New York with English, German, or Spanish subtitles, Spanish being the second most widely-spoken language in the United States.
If the Met itself is making an effort to reach out to a broader demographic, why was the performance in Cairo not accompanied by subtitles in Arabic — the official and most widely spoken language of Egypt?
When asked about the issue, Eid, responded; “You think that Arabic subtitles were necessary??” Despite the apparent oddness of the question, Eid said that she would communicate the concern to her superiors.
One could doubtlessly argue that the average person does not go to the Opera anyway, that it is passé and uninteresting to most. Yet even if offered the opportunity to go, how could an average Egyptian do so if this simulcast, deemed by the Met website as part of an “initiative and reach worldwide audiences…to keep opera one of the most thrilling art forms, relevant to our time, and a part of the cultural mainstream,” is both financially unaffordable and linguistically inaccessible?
In all, while the techniques of the Met’s “Live in HD” simulcasts are surely a mean to re-democratize opera and engage a new generation of audiences, the experience continues to be reserved for a group of elites.
Lepage and Levine’s production remains astounding and recommended as will undoubtedly be true of the subsequent simulcast performances at the Small Hall. However, the Met’s effort to bring opera to more people all over the world in fact succeeds only in bringing more opera to the same people…at least in Cairo.
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The set, unlike any ever seen on an opera stage, is a 45-ton metal structure consisting of 26-foot towers at either end of the stage with a horizontal bar running between them that supports 24 planks. (Craig Ruttle/AP Photo)
