Popcorn with your Puccini: can opera on screen ever work?
Composers have harnessed TV and cinema since Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors pulled in five million viewers 75 years ago but for my money Kombat Opera’s satire showed us how to do it best
TL;DR
- The first opera made for television, Gian Carlo Menotti's 'Amahl and the Night Visitors', premiered 75 years ago and was a significant success.
- Benjamin Britten's 'Owen Wingrave', a 55-year-old opera for the BBC, was less focused on popular appeal and more on exploring the medium's possibilities.
- Modern opera is increasingly shown in cinemas through live streams from venues like the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House, attracting new audiences.
- The article argues that the intimacy of film requires a different mode of delivery than the projection inherent in opera, and opera on screen is most successful when it turns its attention to the screen itself, as seen in 'Kombat Opera'.
- Raymond Gubbay is celebrated for his imaginative and energetic popularization of classical music over the last 60 years, focusing on large-scale, profitable productions.