April 4, 2007

Puccini goes well with popcorn

By Sarah Vanderwolf
svander3@uwo.ca

It's Saturday afternoon at the Silver City movie theatre. Next to the sounds of Hannibal Rising and Dreamgirls soar the strains of highly trained operatic voices singing the Russian lyrics to Eugene Onegin, a 19th-century opera by Tchaikovsky.

Although the show doesn't begin until 1:30 p.m., the seats are nearly full an hour beforehand. One of the many audience members is a woman dressed in stylish black clothing, whose greying hair blends in with the mostly older crowd. A trained piano teacher with an abiding interest in music and the arts, Margot Khan plans to attend all six operas being broadcast at Silver City this year.

But since when has opera had anything to do with the movies? Since the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City started broadcasting live some of its performances to be shown in movie theatres around the world. The initiative gives the New York opera house a chance to increase its audience base, and movie theatre owners an opportunity to increase their ticket sales.

The broadcasts began just last December and have been tremendously successful. Tens of thousands of opera fans from around the world have thronged to their local movie theatres for the chance to see world-class opera, albeit in a setting unlike that of a real opera house.

Lifelong London resident Khan, 57, is one such fan. After many years of raising children and paying for their university education, Khan says she and her husband Ari are making up for their hiatus from the arts world with a vengeance. The live broadcasts couldn't have come at a better time.

Khan says she found out about the new program while browsing on the Internet. "I saw a review of I Puritani online in some newspaper. So I decided to check and see if it was broadcast in Canada and, lo and behold, it was here in London."

Khan enjoys the "up-close-and-personal" aspect of the broadcasts immensely. Each broadcast performance includes shot material from 10 cameras, allowing the audience to see close-ups of the performers' facial expressions, their costumes, and even inside the orchestra pit.

"The cinematic presentation is fantastic," says Khan. "The more screenings you see of an opera, the more you enjoy it. It's like seeing Shakespeare. No two productions are the same. There's always something that you feel you have gained."

Two theatre chains are broadcasting the operas in Canada: Cineplex Theatres and Empire Theatres. Georgia Sourtzis, a spokeswoman for Cineplex, says that the company's head offices in Toronto have been "blown away by how successful (the opera broadcasts) were immediately." Although the chain originally broadcast the operas in 28 theatres nationwide, the demand was so great that they have expanded to 36. And this number doesn't account for the fact that many theatres show the operas in more than one screening room simultaneously, says Sourtzis.

"(The operas) are an excellent opportunity for our audiences who can't go to New York," says Sourtzis. "It's something different and unique…it's affordable and it's in the comfort of your local theatre." A single movie ticket at Silver City is under $10 for an adult, whereas opera tickets in New York can range anywhere from $150 to $300 US.

But the affordability and convenience of the local broadcasts won't stop Khan from travelling to bigger cities to see live opera.

For the past few years, Khan and her husband have bought season tickets to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. The first production they saw this year was The Ring, a German opera by Richard Wagner.

"It was a magnificent experience," says Khan. "I was astounded with the acoustics." Khan was also impressed with the opera's storyline because it's rooted in ancient mythology.

Khan enjoys overhearing the chatter at the Four Seasons. "There's always such an international audience," she says. "I hear people talking excitedly about opera productions they've seen around the world, in Norway, San Francisco. If I can understand the language they're speaking, that is," she adds with a laugh.

In contrast, one is more likely to hear shrieking children and noisy teenagers at a local movie theatre, and to see spilled popcorn and soda on the floor.

"The whole ambience is so different. I would still go to Toronto," says Khan.

Khan and her husband have discussed travelling to the Big Apple to indulge their passion for opera but decided it was far too expensive. Now, they don't need to travel to New York to see opera; instead, New York comes to them.

"I think this is such an exciting endeavour. I see it as just a wonderful way of trying to expand the audience base (for the Met). I think it'll really increase people's interest in opera," she says.

Khan's love of it began when she was just a teenager.

"The first opera I ever saw was a travelling production of Cosi fan tutte by Mozart. The music was beautiful and I just really enjoyed it."

To this day, Khan appreciates the combination of vocal, musical, and dramatic expertise in world-class opera productions. "The singers' dramatic ability is just as important as singing voice, and the music can be sublimely beautiful," says Khan. To increase her knowledge, Khan has enrolled in an opera appreciation class offered at Aeolian Hall.

The opera broadcasts are part of Cineplex Theatre's "alternate content," which also includes hockey, wrestling, and other sporting events. These types of programming are designed to increase ticket sales during the afternoons, which spokesperson Georgia Sourtzis says are their slowest time. Sourtzis says Cineplex Theatres hopes to include Broadway plays or Canadian opera productions as part of their lineup next year, although nothing has been finalized.

Dr. Keir Keightley, a professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, says journalist Charles Acland's book, called Screen traffic, movies, multiplexes and global culture, explores the changing culture of movie-going. According to Acland's book, the film industry's reliance on "ancillary media markets such as DVD, VCR and pay-per-view television have cultivated a global landscape of cross-marketed media commodities." The opera broadcasts are a prime example of a globalized cinema event and a cross-market media commodity, says Keightley..

Torin Chiles, a faculty member of the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western, says the opera broadcasts add excitement to the arts world.

"Aren't they great?" he gushes over the phone. "There's a lot of interest (in opera) here in London, but we maybe get one live opera a year. This is a fabulous opportunity."

Chiles had a career as a lyric opera singer before coming to Western to teach eight years ago. As a tenor, he performed in opera houses across North America for 20 years.

The opera broadcasts are "affordable and up close and personal," he says. "For the price of a movie ticket, you even get to see backstage - even the production process. In New York, you'd pay $100, $150 US check style for an (opera) ticket, which wouldn't get you a good seat."

Chiles is referring to the behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast that are featured during the opera's intermission, an addition that Khan enjoys as well.

"I think it's so wonderful they've taken the time and energy to do that," she says.

Back at Silver City, the crowded theatres slowly empty following the dramatic conclusion of Eugene Onegin. In just another month, the crowds will be back to watch the next opera, but an Italian one this time - The Barber of Seville.