Transcript of conversation with Peter Gelb
Jo: Peter Gelb, can you talk about, first of all, the origins of your fairly new series, which is The Metropolitan Opera in HD ?
Peter Gelb: Well, the efforts to bring opera-- our
performances-- into movie theaters around the world live began when I
became general manager. This is my fifth season as general manager, in
the year leading up to my first season, when I was the general manager
at Elect , I spent a lot of my time working with my colleagues, trying
to develop new strategies to reinvigorate opera as an art form, because
it needed a kind of a shot in the arm, since the audiences at the Met
clearly were aging and diminishing. So the-- there was a
multiple-pronged approach, which involved not only ways to make the
opera much more accessible and available, including our live HD
transmissions, but also a way to revive it artistically. On the one
hand, the Met had been throughout its history, and certainly recent
years were no exception, the great musical leader. I mean, under James
Levine, the great conductor of the Met, the Met's orchestra has thrived
and is considered to be the great opera orchestra of the world. But
theatrically, the Met had not really made advances comparable to what
had been happening in theater or in film in recent decades, and I felt
it was very important that the Met transform itself into a modern
theater, in terms of the theatrical experience that goes with the
musical experience, because opera, of course, is a blending of both
theater and music.
Jo: So when you talk about theatrical modernization, and you're talking about, I'm assuming, restaging the operas...
Peter Gelb: Right. What I've made a great effort to
do is to invite the world's leading theater directors to work at the Met
and to support them in their efforts to present opera as they would
theater, whether it's on Broadway or the West End, in the most
compelling ways to appeal to a modern audience. In the same way that the
same way that movies and theatrical productions are and have advanced,
opera has to advance as well, otherwise it would be in danger of not
appealing to new audiences. So we're trying to sort of attack this
challenge of keeping opera popular, on the one hand by scraping away the
sort of elitist image of it by making it available and accessible to
everyone who possibly can be interested in it, and at the same time to make it interesting by bringing all of these great new theater directors to the Met.
Jo: Well, opera itself, I think, is such a
challenge, in terms of juggling the music, juggling the theater,
juggling the orchestra, juggling the singing, and then bringing a live broadcast to that must make it certainly challenging and very interesting in
presenting that very smoothly. Can you talk about some of the
considerations that go into staging an opera when you know it's also
going to be broadcast?
Peter Gelb: Certainly. Well, first of all, I think
there's somewhat of a misunderstanding out there about how we produce
our live transmissions at the movie theaters. They are secondary to what
we are doing in the opera house itself, in terms of production, because
it is so challenging and so complicated to meld together the theatrical
and musical aspects of the opera. I mean, this is a theater that, on
any given day, has more than 3,000 people working in it, and a large
portion of those are our performing forces. We have a full-sized
orchestra, we have a full-sized chorus, we have dancers, we have a full
dance company, and we have a huge complement of stagehands to move our
scenery around, so it's really kind of almost a military operation, in
terms of how it has to be coordinated to make it work well. And, of
course, for it to be successful, it has to be theatrically and
artistically pleasing. So we devote all of our attention first to making
sure that we get it right on the stage. Then, as a secondary
consideration, we throw our forces efforts into how we produce these
performances as live events in movie theaters, and there is a certain
amount of subtle shifting that's done for the cameras, but it involves
not so much any changes in the staging or in the conception of a
production on the stage, but more in the details like lighting-- subtle
differences in lighting-- or makeup, things that need to be altered for a
camera close-up. But all of the casting that we do, all of the large
strokes, in terms of the theatrical experience, are planned without any
consideration for the eventual transfer onto a live performance in the
movie theaters.
Jo: And-- I just want to make sure I got this. So
even though some of the operas are broadcast live, that really isn't a
consideration when it comes to staging? There isn't a moment where the
broadcast director will look and say, “Oh, that is just unfilmable”?
Peter Gelb: No. Exactly. And first-- what's
interesting, I think, also-- I mean, the reason why that doesn't happen
is because it's the same team that is producing what is going on the
stage is also producing what's going into the movie theater, so it's a
very coordinated effort, and basically it's led under-- it's under my
watch, so I am functioning as the, if you will, the kind of line
producer for what appears on the stage, and also for what appears on
camera. Obviously, the directors are all different, but there is a
common goal. We're not trying to make films here. What we're doing is,
the way-- the approach to the live HD transmissions, which occur not
only in the United States, but all over the world-- they take place at
1:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time so that we accommodate a wide array of
time zones. If you think of how sporting events are transmitted, that's
our approach to opera. We place the cameras according to what is on the
stage and what will be most easily kind of produced, or what would be
produced best for cameras, and we also have several moving cameras
inside the house that do not offend the audience in the theater, but
make the shot selection much more interesting for the audiences in the
movie theaters. And we also-- what's very exciting for the movie theater
audience is the live backstage action that we provide, as well. We have
several cameras that float around backstage, together with our
on-camera hosts, who are always opera stars who are not singing on that
particular day. So, , for example, when we broadcast Das Rheingold at the beginning of our HD season a week or so ago, the host was
Deborah Voigt who will be singing, starring in the second
installment of the Ring Cycle Die Valkyrie in the
spring. So, she became the on-camera reporter-host of that broadcast,
and she-- and the cameras take the audience in the movie theaters
backstage for interviews with the artists as they come off the stage
between acts, in the dressing rooms. The cameras go everywhere, and the
audiences in the movie theaters feel very privileged, I think, and
excited about that. But it really is-- it's equivalent to, as I was
saying before, the way-- it's live reporting of an event, and we don't
try to pretend that it's anything other than that. It is-- operas are
staged to be seen by an audience in the theater, and the cameras
register that and go along with that. So we're not trying to say, “This
is an opera film.” It's live coverage of a performance on the stage, and
that's what's exciting for the audiences in the theaters, because they
are participating in their movie theaters or performing arts centers,
where they're watching on giant screens, and they applaud along with the
audience in the house, and feel part of the event itself.
Jo: In some ways, this is a descendent of the program that began in '77, Live from the Metropolitan Opera, which was seen on PBS.
Peter Gelb: Right.
Jo: And then after a few years, the performances were
taped prior to broadcast, but you decided that the live performance
was important to capture.
Peter Gelb: Well, I thought it was important to go
back to the idea of the live event because, in looking back historically
at the Met, it is-- what has been interesting for audiences has always
been the live coverage of the Met, whether it's the radio-- Saturday
matinee radio broadcasts of the Met have been a cultural staple in
American households, the radio series began 79 years ago. This is
actually the 80th anniversary season of our Saturday matinee radio
broadcasts, and historically it's been proven that audiences like to
listen to the Met live. What's different, of course, about what the Met
did with public television in '77 or '78 is that the experience today is
much more visually exciting and thrilling, and also from an audio point
of view, too, to be able to see it on a giant screen in a large movie
theater or performing arts center, with surround sound and close-ups of
opera fans' favorite artists and live shots of the scenery and so forth,
is much more impressive and more of a communal event, for that matter,
when you are experiencing it with fellow opera lovers in a theater. And
the technology of being able to capture these events is much different
and more advanced today than it was 30 years ago, and also it's not
being seen on a small screen anymore.
Jo: Exactly. That's exactly where I was going to go.
Clearly, it's the technology, but it's also the community of opera
lovers that it brings together throughout the country and around the
world.
Peter Gelb: Right. And I think opera lovers think
it's pretty cool to know that they are part of an audience in attendance
that literally spanning the globe. Robert LaPage, the director of our Rheingold production called me up. We had already opened Rheingold,
and when we did the HD show about a week or so later, he was in Lyons,
where he went to see the transmission live in France. And he said
afterwards he was barraged with e-mails and text messages from people
literally all over the world, who had been sitting in their theaters
watching this along with him. So that's a experience that has never
existed before, I think, and it's something that has really transformed,
certainly, the electronic distribution of opera, and it has raised
the interest level in opera, as well, and there are all these other
positive effects that it's had. It's had a very positive effect on the
performers, who-- certainly as far as the Met is concerned, because the
big stars want to sing at the Met even more than before now because they
know that if they're included in one of these HD transmissions, they're
literally playing for an audience that spans the globe, and it also has
the effect of sometimes providing some of the hottest performances
that we offer on our stage. No two performances are ever the same in
opera, obviously. It depends how the performers feel on any given day,
but one thing-- and that is for certain, though-- is that the excitement
of performing in front of this audience around the world stimulates the
adrenaline flow in singers, and for those artists who respond well to
pressure, which is typical of all the great artists, like all great
athletes, they more often than not, and in fact almost always-- rise
to the occasion, and again, deliver their hottest, most exciting
performances.
Jo: Clearly, you thought this was going to be very successful, but are you surprised at how successful it is?
Peter Gelb: Well, I'm very gratified at how
successful it is. I counted on it being successful because it had to be
successful. Quite frankly, it's-- when I took over this position at the
Met, as I said earlier, the fortunes of the Met were not at a high
point, and clearly radical intervention was needed in order to get the
audience reinvigorated and stimulated, and more people coming to the
opera, and that has worked. So the initial idea behind these
transmission was to excite the audience and strengthen the bond between
the Met and opera fans, and particularly to drive attendance at the
opera house itself, which may seem like it's counterintuitive, perhaps,
because you would think that maybe audiences would go to the movie
theaters and not want to go to the opera house, but in fact the opposite
is true, and what I was relying upon was the way sports teams have
strengthened their bonds with their fans and increased attendance in
their stadiums by making all games available, via the Internet, via
television sets in sports bars, via radio, and so we're trying to do the
same. We're trying to make an opera available to everybody, and as
often as possible, and that seems to have a very positive effect. It has
definitely been responsible for an increase in interest in attending
the opera at the Met. And then what we-- perhaps what we didn't expect
fully was that it would pay for itself; the revenue we would receive
would cover the incremental costs of the camera production. But it has
far surpassed that, and it has become a, in the last couple of seasons, a
valuable new revenue stream for the Met, because, as you know, opera
companies-- and the Met is the biggest opera company, not only in terms
of performance schedule, but in terms of budget-- can only survive if
funding equals costs, and for that Met that means a combination of box
office and donations, and now a new revenue stream of net profits from
our movie transmissions-- movie theater transmissions-- and collectively
they are making it possible for us this year to have a balanced budget.
Jo: Peter Gelb, thank you for giving me your time on a very busy Saturday, when you're about to have a live broadcast.
Peter Gelb: Thank you very much.
Jo: Thank you.
