For beginners and afficinados

A perfectly staged Opera is more exciting than many a thriller. The current online offering of individual opera houses is excellent. We have it for You tested, because it’s worth trying it out now.

As important as breaking news is – each of us also needs a break from incidence reports.

A good opera contains everything and more of what we can experience in life and does so in an elegant, stirring form. An opera at home on the screen is an excellent way to be transported into another world for a short time with an exciting production.

And that’s without the cliffhanger at the end, which, like glutamate, tempts you to watch the next part of a series right away.

World-class opera at the price that usually costs the glass of champagne at intermission

We have taken a look at the best offers. The following criteria were important to us:

Video also needs direction

The live experience is irreplaceable. The video format must therefore offer more than a stage manager version, in which the action on stage is constantly recorded from one perspective with a still camera.

It takes a film director, several cameras and an experienced recording supervisor so that we, as viewers, can see the action and individual singers from the best perspective on screen in turn and follow the opera as if we had taken a seat in the front row of the opera house.

1,2,3 – The curtain opens

A fast, efficient process was also important to us. Some opera houses manage to have the curtain open after three clicks at the latest.

Other opera houses require lengthy registration procedures, sometimes requiring a 24-hour wait for access to initial registration, so that the wine provided has long since been drunk before the curtain can open.

Translation

Translation in supertitles or subtitles, at least in English (for GloriousMe readers in London, Sydney and New York) and into German is important.

Here, too, there are differences: some libretto texts are emblazoned on a relatively wide bar in the image, others can be followed discreetly but legibly.

We don’t want to be petty here – the pandemic took everyone by surprise, and presenting a sophisticated video-on-demand offering for opera productions requires resources and the conviction that this form of presentation will remain relevant in the medium to long term.

The GloriousMe recommendations

Zurich Opera House: Small, fine with excellent process

Zurich Opera currently offers four outstanding current productions and two live streams each. The operas are presented on the homepage and can be accessed from there, for a small fee, on the video platform Vimeo.

Once you’re registered on Vimeo, which is also very quick, within seconds you’re sitting in the front row of this small, beautiful opera house, enjoying excellent opera productions.

Choose red wine already

Open a good bottle of Italian red wine right this weekend and enjoy I Capuleti e I Montecchi (Romeo and Juliet) in Christoph Loy’s production.

The outstanding mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato sings and plays Romeo so convincingly that after the last scene you urgently need another tiramisu as consolation for the fact that the final curtain has fallen.

There is nothing cloying or kitschy about this production; it is more reminiscent of the current mafia trial in Calabria.

You should set aside the coming weekend for it right away, because this opera is only on the schedule until February 1, 2021. More exciting productions are sure to follow.

Irish National Opera – Twenty Opera Shots

Yes, you have read correctly. Similar to a shot, a drink you can empty from a small glass in one go, made of ginger and fruit puree for some, and preferably filled with tequila for others, there are short operas here, each lasting only 6 – 8 minutes.

The Irish National Opera commissioned 20 short operas at the beginning of the Corona crisis, when it was foreseeable that the planned regular opera service would have to be suspended. The content could, but did not have to be related to Corona.

The opera shot for the lunch break

The short operas are available free of charge on the Irish National Opera website. It’s worth it: contemporary opera music, outstanding singers, witty, quirky and often very touching productions, each lasting no longer than a classic Handel aria.

In “Message for Marty”, for example, Jackie’s sister leaves an angry video call to her sister’s husband, who has dumped her with a text message and who has been crying ever since, never leaving her bathroom where the empty pizza boxes are already piling up. The video call comes across as shrill and trashy as some rap, sung here by two opera singers with perfect voices and comedic talent.

The opera shots are excellently produced and each is short enough to enjoy with a sandwich during a lunch break at the home office.

The Irish National Opera is a comparatively small opera house that has been delivering good quality for years, but is not widely known outside of Ireland. It has made excellent use of the Corona crisis and hopes to attract new audiences to opera.

Bavarian State Opera – Monday is opera day

Whenever an opera is performed at the Bavarian State Opera, you will always see some people standing in front of the entrance door with a “Ticket wanted” sign in their hand.

The quality of the productions and the city’s opera-loving audience, as well as Munich’s always numerous tourists, ensure that it is relatively difficult to get tickets for an opera performance at short notice.

In Corona times, the Bavarian State Opera offers a “Monday Play” every Monday evening at 8:15 pm. Free of charge. Alternating, opera, operetta, concert and ballet.

These are performances that were documented before the outbreak of the pandemic or productions that, following hygiene measures, have to make do with a small cast.

Beautiful is the world (Franz Lehár)

The operetta “Schön ist die Welt” by Franz Lehár gets by with one narrator, who also takes on two singing roles, four singers and three chorus members, who ironically and wittily narrate the operetta in quick succession.

There is even an opera sound machine for this operetta, from which you could selectively call up mumbling, coughing, the annoying unwrapping of a sweet from the spectator behind you, intermission bells, etc., if you weren’t glad that you could do without all that for once.

From the following Wednesday, the respective Monday play is available as video-on-demand. A 24-hour ticket, also available via Vimeo, starts at 4.90 euros.

If you are registered with VIMEO and have entered your payment details there, you can join the service with just two clicks. A well-functioning, fast process.

Or Four Last Songs (Richard Strass) … and much more

See Also

STOCKHOLM

The Bavarian State Opera offers very good opera quality, often with the current stars of the opera stage and as conservative as one likes it around Maximilianstrasse.

All this can be experienced at home at a price that would buy a program booklet in normal times. Just give it a try. Such an offer may not exist after the pandemic.

Metropolitan Opera – another superlative

The Metropolitan Opera (Met) debut stands proudly on the resume of any singer or conductor. Every opera lover would like to take a seat live at least once in the building of New York’s Lincoln Center and see the Lobmeyr chandeliers glide into the air before the curtain opens on an opera production at the famous Metropolitan Opera.

Corona has dealt a heavy blow to this opera house, which is entirely privately funded.

Much earlier than other opera houses, however, the Met had already invested in extensive production technology for recordings of opera performances and in 2006 launched its Opera Live in HD series, which allowed opera performances by the Met to be experienced in movie theaters worldwide. You may already know the Met Opera from your local movie theater.

Currently, the MET offers daily live streaming, which starts late at night for the majority of GloriousMe readers due to the time difference

Everything the opera heart desires

Available at any time is the huge library of over 200 operas (135 of them digital, the rest analog) which can be accessed via video on demand.

In the library you can choose the opera of your choice according to various selection criteria: simply alphabetically by the name of the opera, the composer or the singers of the particular performance.

The prerequisite is a one-time registration with the Met with address data. Compared to some other opera houses where we have applied for access, which we are still waiting for today, the registration process here works smoothly.

The purchase of the opera videos takes place in each case via a one-time payment via credit card.

Champagne from the glass instead of plastic cups

Our most recent purchase from the Met was the Handel opera Agrippina in an actual performance from February 29, 2020 in very good picture and sound quality with decent English subtitles and excellent singers for US $4.99.

For every Handel fan a fantastic pleasure, over 3 hours and 25 min with the laptop on the couch, with the iPad on the Retreat resort chair or festively dressed in the living room at home to follow the intrigues of Nero’s mother, who does everything to install her son on the throne in Rome.

The champagne can be drunk from your favorite glass and is not served in a plastic cup at the bar, as is usual at the Met after September 11th.

Support your local

The Handel opera Agrippina was also a reunion for us with singer Braenda Rae in the role of Poppea. A singer we know and appreciate live on stage at the Frankfurt Opera.

Supporting the particular opera house you love and attend in non-pandemic times is more important than ever, especially in these times.

But it would be too bad not to make additional use of the aforementioned offers of the opera houses for an introduction to the world of opera or to bridge the time until a personal opera experience is possible again.

The online access numbers and opera views please everyone involved who contributed to the production in question. Every click is applause for the opera.

Some of the online opera offerings are so excellent that we hope they won’t disappear completely after the pandemic.