More International Reaction to Saturday’s Flute Transmission
Posted by Matt Dobkin on 12/31/2006Yesterday’s live high-definition transmission of The Magic Flute was an international success. From California to the Arctic Circle, the response has been tremendous.
Hal Uplinger is a producer of LiveAid, so he knows about sending live shows to huge international audiences. “A smash - it was just fantastic,” he said after seeing the presentation in Irvine, California. “It looked great. I hope this is the beginning of something really, really big. What a great way to end the year!”
Patricia C. Pierose, of Boise, Idaho, agreed. “Yesterday I saw Taymor’s production of The Magic Flute in a packed house at 11:30 in the morning in my Levi’s,” she reports. “It was such great fun. If I come to New York once a year, I can not possibly see all that I want to. I grew up listening to the Texaco sponsored Metropolitan Opera on the radio. Saturday’s performance was thrilling and gorgeous, even if abbreviated. We clapped along with the rest of the New York audience.”
Meanwhile, in Tromso, Norway (see a photo of the town below), three audience members wrote in, “What a performance. It was amazing to watch The Magic Flute live from the Met here in Tromso, Norway. We are really looking forward to next Saturday’s performance.”
That will be Bellini’s I Puritani, starring Anna Netrebko, followed the following Saturday by the world-premiere production of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor, starring Placido Domingo. Three more live HD transmissions later in the season!
January 5th, 2007 at 10:34 am
I would like to say a big thank you to all involved in bringing the Magic Flute to the movie theatre. It was so exciting to arrive an hour early and find hundreds of other opera lovers streaming into the theatre. The crowds were so big that a second theater had to be opened at Silver City in Victoria B.C. The audience was so entranced they seemed to believe they were really there at the Met and there was applause along with the Met audience after the most thrilling arias and at the end. It was a wonderful experience and friend and I could talk of nothing else during lunch following the 10:30 am showing and the idea that we were part of a world wide audience added to our excitement. Even more wonderful, as we drove home, the opera we had just witnessed was repeated on CBC radio so we could listen to it all over again!
Thankyou! Thankyou! Thankyou!
January 8th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Congratulations to the person who dreamed up the idea of bringing the Met to theatres across the country.
Our German relatives were extremely upset not to see it in Germany, just over the radio.
I Puritani was a dream come thru. Just fantastic. We couldn’t get it out of our mind for days.
Thank you and congratulations.
Helga and Thomas Krath