STORY AND LINK: Simulcasts, Web casts — are these the future for classical music?

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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• Metropolitan Opera opens 2009-2010 season of high-definition opera theatre telecasts on Saturday
• Philharmonic Web cast from Hollywood Bowl draws more than 35,000 viewers
• Does Music Center plaza simulcast portend a new era?
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Affordability. Availability. Those are two of the hot buzzwords in classical music these days, as they should be. Building audiences in the future will require successful answers to those thorny dilemmas. As it happens, this week demonstrates a glimpse into that future.

On Saturday at 10 a.m., the Metropolitan Opera launches its fourth season of high-definition theatre telecasts of live productions with a performance of Puccini’s Tosca, the controversial new production that opened the Met’s season last month and brought salvos of boos for director Luc Bondy. Locally (to San Gabriel Valley readers), the telecast can be seen at the Alhambra Renaissance 14, AMC Burbank 16, and at the AMC Santa Anita in Arcadia. A repeat performance will be held Oct. 31 at 1 p.m. Here’s a LINK to the Met site where you can see details on the performance, find theatre details and purchase tickets.

This week also marked the debut of Gustavo Dudamel as the 11th music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to being broadcast, last Saturday’s concert at Hollywood Bowl was shown on a live Web cast (which was repeated for a 24-hour window Sunday and Monday). The live feed had 19,531 people watching the program and another 17,964 people saw portions during the repeat (37,495 total).

“We were only able to negotiate rights [for the 24-hour window],” explained Sophie Jefferies, the Philharmonic’s director of public relations. “We wanted to make sure that people in every time zone had a chance to see it.” Visitors logged on from all 50 U.S. states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico and from 90 countries on all seven continents (nearly 10,000 from Venezuela viewed).

Thursday’s inaugural gala at Walt Disney Concert Hall was simulcast to an audience of 3,000 across 1st St. in the Music Center plaza and was broadcast nationally and worldwide (REVIEW).

The concert was also taped for the Public Broadcasting Sytems’s Great Performances series; it will be seen in the U.S. on Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. and also in Europe. Deutsche Grammophon will release a DVD of the telecast on Nov. 23 and a CD of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (the second work on the program) will be available for download in iTunes on Oct. 20.

None of these things are groundbreaking, although some of them are relatively new. Radio broadcasts have been going on for nearly a century and telecasts for more than half a century. DVDs (and their predecessors, laserdiscs) have been produced for more than 20 years and downloading music files has rapidly gained increasing popularity in the past few years. The Met has simulcast its opening nights in the Lincoln Center plaza and in Times Square for the past four seasons and its high-def telecasts in theatres is about to begin its fourth season.

However, taken together they represent a way to extend the reach of an orchestra or opera company beyond those people who come to the theatre. Moreover, the increasingly high quality of Web casts is coming closer to matching the concert hall experience; it will (hopefully) never equate to sitting in an indoor hall but it’s coming closer and offers its own unique perspectives.

What the 18,000 people who came to Hollywood Bowl on Saturday night experienced couldn’t translate totally to the Web cast. However, from a music quality point of view a case could easily be made that what I heard on my computer the following day was far more impressive than what we heard sitting in the Bowl and we got the added advantage of some excellent closeup images. To see the joy on the chorus singers’ faces made a powerful statement, the interplay between Principal Flute Mathieu Dufour and Principal Oboist Ariana Ghez was fascinating, and of course there were the many shots of Gustavo. As noted in my review, the video of the simulcast was much better.

Likewise, the Met Opera theatre high-def telecasts offer their own unique advantages as opposed to sitting in the theatre. You tend to lose the production’s overall scope (a significant factor considering the massive Met stage) but the focused shots provide their own perspective. I read many reviews of last year’s new production of Peter Grimes, and while many of the comments were critical of the sets and production, those issues were simply not apparent in the theater; in fact, seeing the detail of the sets was a significant advantage over those who were at the Met.

So what does all this mean for the Philharmonic’s future? Simulcasts, in one form or another, would seem to be a logical answer to the ticket crush at Walt Disney Hall for the Gustavo concerts. We’re not talking free here; simulcasts (and Web casts) do cost money to produce and the Phil, like all other arts organizations, needs to broaden its income streams.

However, one could imagine tickets being sold for a modest cost for simulcasts in theaters throughout the Southland (e.g., Westside, East Los Angeles, South Bay, Orange County), either via a live feed or on a delayed basis using DVD technology. In fact, one might argue that showing a concert one or two days after the concert might well draw some who attended the live performance; I have no doubt that some in attendance would love to hear City Noir, the John Adams piece, and/or Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 again.

Even more intriguing is the issue of Web casting. The Berlin Philharmonic has taken the lead here with its digital concert hall — Web of casts regular subscription concerts from its home concert hall, the Berlin Philharmonie (http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/media/digital-concert-hall/). The concerts are broadcast live and are available as video streams in the archive within a few days (a newly posted archives is a concert with Gustavo conducting the BPO in, among other things, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 12 (The Year 1912) and Sofia Guibaidulina’s Glorious Percussion, a concerto for percussion ensemble and orchestra).

The next live concert is Saturday at 11 a.m. (PDT) with Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov leading a program of Stravinsky’s Symphony for Wind Instruments, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) and Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1, with BPO Concertmaster Guy Braunstein as soloist.

You can price a single concert for about $14.50 (9.90 Euros). You can also buy a 30-day pass, good for concerts and archive performances, for about $56 dollars (39 euros) or a season pass, good for all of last season and this, plus all archived concerts for about $216 (149 euros), which works out to be less than $10 a concert. The quality (at least on my Apple iMac computer with cable modem from Time Warner) is exceptional, especially when you’re using good-quality headphones.

Web casts have another potential market, one that will grow as the population ages. My mother, who is age 86, lives an hour outside of Paso Robles. She’s loved classical music all her life but has no orchestra concerts she can now attend. Even when she lived in Pasadena, going out at night was less and less of an option. Web casts can open new worlds for people like her. Ironically, as younger, computer-savy people become more interested in classical music and older people become less willing to get out of their homes, both groups represent potential major new markets for classical music.

So, which organizations will step up and take advantage. At Dudamel’s media conference a week, ago, LAPO President Deborah Borda said the Phil was looking at options. In an article posted on the L.A. Times Culture Monster Web site (LINK), said, "We're certainly exploring possibilities very strongly and I'm sure you'll see more of them. This is an important new direction for us. We feel very profoundly that digital initiatives and outreach are going to define the inclusion of a whole new audience."

Will other groups follow?
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(c) Copyright 2009, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Comments

[twitter.com/classicalbcast]

I wish they would! But the short answer is no.

I have been doing LIVE video and audio webcasting for 6 years at soundque.com, and have been trying to get classical music organizations on board for just about that period of time.

I have spoken to many organizations at NPAC and through direct contact.

Every organization I approach cites "issues with the union" as their reason to not webcast.

Considering I am located in Michigan, I have a unique perspective on just how damaging unions are to the long-term survival of an organization, be it an auto manufacturer/supplier or an arts organization. Here in Michigan we suffer 15% unemployment due to the short-sightedness of unions, and their ability to look past the quarter profits.

The other main reason that performing arts ensembles cite as a reason for not doing a webcast: they assume it can be pirated. I think its funny that they will jump at the opportunity to do live radio, a medium that is easily "bootleggable", but turn down a Pay-Per-View webcast, when DRM can be applied to the live stream, preventing copying/ripping.

Research supports the continued growth of live webcast video as a viable business model, and I would gladly welcome any organization that wants to grow their audience throughout the world.