Going Live

One of the advantages in living in a big city is the opportunity to see lots of events live. Now we have settled in, we have started to make the most of this. In December, after my orchestra and choir concert in Bucharest, we have attended four contrasting events in New York.




First came my first trip to the Metropolitan Opera. A previous choir gave us a very generous gift token to the Met as a leaving gift, so we can enjoy this place many times. As with most venues in New York, the first decision is how much to pay. Ticket prices at the Met vary from 25 dollars to something over 1000 dollars. Another thing to be aware of is the quaint American way of adding surcharges, whether tax, booking fee or something else. We paid 80 dollars for two Met tickets and found ourselves about half a mile from the stage.



But everything else about the experience was great. In some ways, the distance helped, as it created a clear panorama view of the whole stage and its effects. The singers are amazing, how they can project so far over so long is a wonder. The Met has a beautiful location in the Lincoln centre. The audience is quiet and knowledgeable. And they have a neat facility whereby you can have personal English (or other language) subtitles for the text. It might have been a mistake choosing Mozart for our first try, since three hours of Mozart lacks a bit of variety for my taste. But a very good experience overall.



Then we took the family to see the Nets play basketball at the Barclays centre in Brooklyn. The pricing there was very similar, except that the best seats were even more expensive than the opera. This time we paid sixty five dollars per ticket to sit the same half a mile away. Once again this was less of a handicap than I expected, as the action is still clear and distance lends some perspective too. What basketball has done is really to build up the experience around the match, with good entertainment during (frequent) time outs and intervals, and great use of replay screens.



A sports crowd will always be more rowdy than an opera crowd, and here I was caught between emotions, maybe because we were so far away. The crowd shouted plenty of abuse but did not seem to be engaged in the action all the time, and our view was constantly blocked by people moving about or by beer sellers. It was nothing compared with previous experiences on the terraces at West Ham United, but somehow in the indoor theatre environment I found it annoying.



I think we were unlucky in choosing a game that was a bit of a blowout, where the result was more or less decided very early on. One of the best things about American sports is the way such a high proportion of games stay competitive until very near the end, but not this one. Perhaps engagement would have been more positive in a close game. Still, overall, another fun experience to be repeated sooner rather than later.



A third theatre trip was to a modern ballet in Manhattan. This one was fifty something per ticket, and we were surprised to find another huge theatre and another half mile view. This one was a bit of a last minute decision on a cold, rainy day, but was still good entertainment. Perhaps for such a packed theatre and expensive tickets we could have expected live music. But the choreography was imaginative and the performance excellent.



Perhaps one surprise was that the half mile view detracted more from the ballet than the opera or the basketball. In all the disciplines, one of the advantages of being close is to get a greater feel for the intense physicality of the action, with players sweating and running short of breath. Half a mile away there is none of that, and perhaps it was the ballet that lost the most as a result.



Then, sandwiched between these three performances, we visited something for free, namely a Church service. We have become used to visiting the Episcopal Cathedral on 110th Street and a Church of the same denomination on 5th avenue named St Thomas. So far, we have not been disappointed, rather awestruck by the wonderful performances of heavenly music in perfect settings. The nine lessons and carols service at St Thomas’ on the Sunday before Christmas could rival anything performed in English cathedrals or colleges, and with a much larger audience. One wonderful feature is that the congregation actually sings, and with gusto. That is certainly uncommon on Catholic Churches.



For the Church service, we arrived the same thirty minutes early as we did for the other events, yet here we had perfect seats. The programme was better. And of course it was free, apart from the gifts we chose to make for the collection. In terms of value for money there is no contest. Whatever you believe or don’t believe, if you can appreciate sacred music at all, I have to recommend the Church service over any of the others.



It would be interesting to understand the finances of the four performances. The Church survives on collections, donations, and very modest performance fees. I would expect the ballet wages to be next on the scale, which means that I suspect someone somewhere was making a lot of money from the production we saw, since other staging costs apart from rent will have been minimal. The opera will pay higher fees to performers and the staging is more expensive, but then income from the show will have been considerable and donations will have helped as well, so there is profit in there too. Finally, the basketball, with the largest auditorium and the added benefit of TV rights, but where a lot of the income ends up with the players. No wonder coaches are fired after just a few poor results: a half empty Barclays stadium would spell disaster for the team owner.



In the age of technology, I wonder how these experiences will change in the next ten years, how many would be available at home, and what would be gained or lost as a result. Major sports are almost all available on TV already, and the Met opera streams to cinemas regularly. It won’t be long before I can pay a subscription for home viewing, probably with excellent sound quality. Even St Thomas’ streams its choral services on the web.



So why battle with the crowds and the subway and the entrance fees at all?



Sport on large fields already struggles compared with TV. Some, such as golf, are incomparably better on TV. We love NFL, but the thought of freezing in a vast outdoor arena any time after 1st October holds no appeal at all. There is the raw testosterone of being with fellow fans, but the larger the event the more diluted that is, especially now with all seating stadia. That leaves the “I was there” factor. I still treasure my 1975 FA Cup final programme. But the memory of the Nets against the Bobcats in a one sided regular season match will probably fade quickly and impress others less. I sense sports will have to go the way of basketball, and work on the event around the sport itself, with close ups and replays and interviews and everything the TV can offer.



Live music and theatre has a bigger advantage, which is that somehow recordings never match the emotional impact of live performances. Even poor amateur choirs know this, and just as well given some of my past performances! We went to see Les Miserables at the movies this week, and, magnificent as it was, it lacked something for not having live bodies singing on stage. By the way, if you like Les Miserables, you should try opera. There is little difference between the genres of musical and opera except for the snobbery and target audiences.



Perhaps technology will actually serve to grow audiences, with tricks like the personal subtitles. Pop music has after all gone full circle, back to the days when live performances were seen as most important, not least by the accountants. If that is true, then I guess that is all to the good for all of us.



And it will be worth living in a big city teeming with culture for a few more years yet.