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I wish I had thought to post about this sooner. Did anyone else take advantage of the Metropolitan Opera's "Free Met Player Weekend" this past Friday-Sunday? There is an astonishing number of complete operas, audio and video, at http://www.metplayer.org. I took advantage of it to see some classics I hadn't yet had the chance to see in performance--Rigoletto, Tosca, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure. One can ordinarily watch and listen for very reasonable rates ($15/month for unlimited operas, $3.99/opera, &c.), and I will start doing this (I must finish the Ring cycle!). I wonder if it would be possible to do something like this with ballet.

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I wish I had thought to post about this sooner. Did anyone else take advantage of the Metropolitan Opera's "Free Met Player Weekend" this past Friday-Sunday? There is an astonishing number of complete operas, audio and video, at http://www.metplayer.org. I took advantage of it to see some classics I hadn't yet had the chance to see in performance--Rigoletto, Tosca, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure. One can ordinarily watch and listen for very reasonable rates ($15/month for unlimited operas, $3.99/opera, &c.), and I will start doing this (I must finish the Ring cycle!). I wondert if it would be possible to do something like this with ballet.

Hans, I saw this from a few opera lists that I read. I registered and browsed a bit over the weekend, the Met has a really impressive library that makes up

the menu , mostly from audio broadcasts and video telecasts going back about 70 years. I listed a watched a bit of this and that over the freebie weekend

trial.

The Met has an advantage in that it has been using the media (as we would say today!) for eons to bring it's performances to much larger audiences than could attend in person. The radio broadcasts go back almost 80 years at this point and , after a few experiences in the 50's that didn't quite click, the video telecasts go back more than 30 years. Not all of this material is currently available in Met Player but a really impressive selection of it is and my thought is that they will gradually expand the Met Player selections if the offering attracts a good base.

Opera has a big advantage over ballet here is that my people today are still very happy to listen to an audio only opera performance and there is such a huge amount of material there. Ballet is a different story in that obviously we would only be interested in a video. A few ballet companies are obviously filming (and thus preserving) a portion of their repertory; the Royal Ballet, The Mariinsky, and the POB come to mind

a number of their performances. But I can't think of any one of these that has enough material to offer up an on-demand kind of service at least right nw in 2009.

I think the future may lay in HD telecasts to theaters. The Met Opera has been very successful here, I think La Scala has also HD's some of it's performances

(but not LIVE, which is an advantage the Met has) and volcanohunter has kept us well posted of the efforts of the Royal Ballet and some other ballet outfits that have started this. Much of this material is released on DVD but who knows what the technology of the future may be and the companies that are doing these filmings and distributing them via today's technology such as HD and DVD are also building libraries of performance history which may be made available in ways we haven't even thought possible yet.

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The Met is in the processing of re-engineering the older broadcasts before they release them for Sirius radio, and I assume for the Met Player as well. Just the other day they released a Sutherland/Horne "Norma" from the early '70's. It's taking them a while, but many more will make it into the library.

If I'm at home, and the radio is on, it's Sirius Met Opera Radio 80% of the time, especially when the broadcasts are playing. I switch around during the aria/song/solo music that plays between broadcasts, since Sirius is a set schedule, not on demand. And every time they resurrect the Sills/Verrett "Siege of Corinth".

The only thing I find hard to get used to is that except for live broadcasts, it's straight through: although they have a set of behind-the-scenes interviews, which I hate to miss, usually the most you get between operas is a Sirius plug. (Right now they have opera singers say "You are listening to Met Opera Radio Sirius" in their native language, introduce themselves, and then say it in English.) As soon as one act is over, Margaret Juntwait is giving the synopsis of another. There are no fridge or bio breaks, except between operas! That makes "on demand" that much better: put it on hold, grab a sammy, and then continue.

I'm just waiting for them to stream to iPhone. Then I'll be an even happier camper.

The saddest thing about the Sirius/XM merger is the loss of Vox, the 24/7 vocal channel on XM whose music director was Robert Aubry Smith. XM had broadcasts from other companies, which are probably available over the internet on local radio stations, however long they survive, but mainly a wide range of vocal music programmed by Smith. He now has the overnight show on the classica station at the combined XM/Sirius, but it's while I'm sleeping...

Ballet only works so well on streaming devices. The ballet YouTube excerpts look miniscule on my iPhone.

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I wish I had thought to post about this sooner. Did anyone else take advantage of the Metropolitan Opera's "Free Met Player Weekend" this past Friday-Sunday? There is an astonishing number of complete operas, audio and video, at http://www.metplayer.org. I took advantage of it to see some classics I hadn't yet had the chance to see in performance--Rigoletto, Tosca, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure. One can ordinarily watch and listen for very reasonable rates ($15/month for unlimited operas, $3.99/opera, &c.), and I will start doing this (I must finish the Ring cycle!). I wonder if it would be possible to do something like this with ballet.

Thanks for the heads up, Hans, even after the fact. I hope they can do the same for ballet.

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