Spitball Army

Last year, the Metropolitan Opera in New York began what is perhaps best described as “opera outreach” by sending live broadcasts of performances to hundreds of movie theaters throughout the world.  Here in Birmingham, we are among those fortunate to see these shows on a big screen, even though the theater that hosts them is well outside the city limits in Trussville.  There is not, in fact, a movie house in downtown Birmingham at all, but that should be a topic for another day.

This afternoon, two friends of mine coaxed me into attending the simulcast of the Met’s new production of Peter Grimes.  I have never listened to this opera – what many consider to be Benjamin Britten’s masterpiece – on record or CD, and did not even know the plot, other than that the setting was a seaside fishing village and it involved a trial.  It has also been years since I have attended a live opera performance, though I feel that the ones I have been fortunate to see have been magnificent productions: Puccini’s La Boheme and Turandot at the Opera Company of Boston (prior to its closing in 1991) and Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier at the Met in the mid-’90s.  There have been locally-produced opera stagings here, too, but this was in several ways a “new” experience for me.

Here are some of my impressions of the event:
– The Met production of Peter Grimes is dark.  I don’t mean that the themes were full of gloom (even though that is fair to say).  I mean that, apart from the final scene, the lighting was dim, the sets were various shades of black and gray, the costumes muddy and stifling.  This served the story well, and I felt oppressed just watching the screen.
– The singing by the leads was outstanding, especially Patricia Racette in the role of Ellen Orford, and Anthony Michaels-Moore as Captain Balstrode.
– The simplicity of the set allowed a stronger focus on the story and characters, but without the constant benefit of a full-stage view, I was unable to notice when the architecture of the set changed.  This may have been attributable to the darkness of the stage…did I already say that it was dark?
– Britten’s orchestral writing was breathtaking.  The long musical interludes between scenes within the acts was an imaginative device, conjuring mental images of the landscape or a storm at sea.  I am now on the hunt for the suite of music (“Four Sea Interludes”) drawn from the opera.

Ultimately, one of the more entertaining aspects of this viewing experience was the audience around me.  Have you ever been to a horror film where people in the audience shouted at the screen?  “Turn on the light!”  “Run!”  “Don’t open the door!”  Over the years, I have grown to enjoy horror flicks less and less, but I always enjoyed that aspect of seeing them in a theatre – the communal feeling of watching the movie with people who were involved with it as much as you were (and not talking on their cell phones).  At Peter Grimes today, at the end of each act, many audience members in the movie house began applauding.  I have heard people clap at the conclusion of a good film (rarely in Alabama, but often in Boston).  I have done so myself.  And I have applauded at live music performances, as is appropriate.  But this applause was a bit unusual for a movie house.  First, it went on for a long time.  It could have been that the audible applause from the Met encouraged the people around me to continue.  Then, at the curtain call, the singers came out individually and the Met audience clapped their approval, measurable by the loudness of their clapping.  The audience here did the same.  How odd that was, as if they were trying to communicate their admiration for the performance to the shadows on the screen.

What is the purpose of applause, anyway?  At a live performance of any kind, it serves to let the performers know that their work is appreciated.  In the absence of live performers, it is an acknowledgement to one’s fellow audience members (That was terrific!  Yes, I liked it, too!!).  Or it is a statement of individualism, that one has good taste, that “I can appreciate high art” (like the fellow in the third row at the symphony who shouts “Bravo!” before the conductor has lowered his baton).  Vigorous applause at a screen of projected light and shadow seems mostly wasted, however, without an artist present to hear it.  To preserve the audience’s efforts, someone at the theatre ought to take a measurement of the applause and send it to the Met.  Sample reportage:  “Anthony Dean Griffey’s Act 3 mad scene garnered a 79dB response from the Trussville audience, a favorable rating of roughly 6.78 out of 10, compared to the national average of 8.29.”

How helpful it would be if, near the end of a film screening, the audience would stay in their seats through the closing credits and clap or boo their opinions of the cast members, script writers, cinematographers, casting agents, even locations.  Now, that’s your test audience!