So, you don't want to be on a waiting list for seven years before getting live tickets to the Bayreuth Festival, and you don't want to wait the several years for a potential DVD to be released of the performances there (assuming they're acceptable and marketable enough for DVD). What's a Wagner lover to do?
Technology to the rescue! You can experience all the thrills of live, grand Wagner from Bayreuth from your office or easy chair... well, "live" streaming audio and video, anyway. For those of you who aren't tech officiandos, "streaming" means sending a digital real-time audio-video broadcast over the World-Wide Web. Cameras and mics capture the action, the picture and sound are digitized and broken into packets of data that are sent to a central distribution hub that creates copies of those packets and sends them out to computers all over the Internet where they are reassembled into a "live" audio and video stream to play on your monitor and through your computer's speakers. Yes, technically, it's not "live" live--there is a delay of a few seconds to a few minutes--but a little research will reveal that even "live" TV shows are rarely not on a few seconds of digital delay, especially in the post-Janet-Jackson-Superbowl-halftime-show-wardrobe-malfunction era. That's about as live as things get without being there in person.
Of course, Bayreuth will charge you for it: $77 to be exact... per production. Ouch! But, wait! Think about that for a minute: Think of it as pay-per-view. A quick check of my own local pay-per-view events lines up as such:
Soooo, $77 is not that big a stretch, is it? I mean, if you're plopping down fifty bucks to watch a live-action cartoon... You need to face it! That's what wrestling is, right?... Why not spend the extra $22.99 to watch something quality? And while wrestling will entertain you for the requisite two hours, with "Meistersinger" will keep you enthralled for about five hours. (I'd be very curious to see a show of hands of people that would fall into the demographic of both events, please.)
Okay, let's compare apples to apples, shall we? The recent high-definition rebroadcasts of Met productions run, what? $24 or so? And those were "canned" videotaped productions in which a performance was filmed and later edited out for content and run-time. Hardly live. Ah! I recently documented a simulcast of a San Francisco Opera production at AT&T park. Hard to beat the price there--free. Of course, you won't have the comfort of your own couch, the convenience (and thriftiness) of your own fridge, and the use of your own personal bathroom for that... and you certainly can't see the performance when you're, uh... indisposed. However, thanks to your trusty laptop and a "wi-fi" router/switch in your home, you're more than welcome to drag "Götterdämmerung" in with you. (Yes, I know it sounds gross, but surely you've drug a magazine or novel in there... or maybe you've already installed a TV in your "'loo.") You won't miss a minute of the action.
Or you can just wait for the DVD to come out this November.
Technology to the rescue! You can experience all the thrills of live, grand Wagner from Bayreuth from your office or easy chair... well, "live" streaming audio and video, anyway. For those of you who aren't tech officiandos, "streaming" means sending a digital real-time audio-video broadcast over the World-Wide Web. Cameras and mics capture the action, the picture and sound are digitized and broken into packets of data that are sent to a central distribution hub that creates copies of those packets and sends them out to computers all over the Internet where they are reassembled into a "live" audio and video stream to play on your monitor and through your computer's speakers. Yes, technically, it's not "live" live--there is a delay of a few seconds to a few minutes--but a little research will reveal that even "live" TV shows are rarely not on a few seconds of digital delay, especially in the post-Janet-Jackson-Superbowl-halftime-show-wardrobe-malfunction era. That's about as live as things get without being there in person.
Of course, Bayreuth will charge you for it: $77 to be exact... per production. Ouch! But, wait! Think about that for a minute: Think of it as pay-per-view. A quick check of my own local pay-per-view events lines up as such:
- Ultimate Fighting Championship 86 - $44.99
- TNA Wrestling - $29.99
- WWE Wrestling - $39.99
- Boxing - $49.99
Soooo, $77 is not that big a stretch, is it? I mean, if you're plopping down fifty bucks to watch a live-action cartoon... You need to face it! That's what wrestling is, right?... Why not spend the extra $22.99 to watch something quality? And while wrestling will entertain you for the requisite two hours, with "Meistersinger" will keep you enthralled for about five hours. (I'd be very curious to see a show of hands of people that would fall into the demographic of both events, please.)
Okay, let's compare apples to apples, shall we? The recent high-definition rebroadcasts of Met productions run, what? $24 or so? And those were "canned" videotaped productions in which a performance was filmed and later edited out for content and run-time. Hardly live. Ah! I recently documented a simulcast of a San Francisco Opera production at AT&T park. Hard to beat the price there--free. Of course, you won't have the comfort of your own couch, the convenience (and thriftiness) of your own fridge, and the use of your own personal bathroom for that... and you certainly can't see the performance when you're, uh... indisposed. However, thanks to your trusty laptop and a "wi-fi" router/switch in your home, you're more than welcome to drag "Götterdämmerung" in with you. (Yes, I know it sounds gross, but surely you've drug a magazine or novel in there... or maybe you've already installed a TV in your "'loo.") You won't miss a minute of the action.
Or you can just wait for the DVD to come out this November.
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