Tag Archives: San Francisco Opera

The Met Learns About Theatrical Windows

February 26, 2008

There has been a lot of hoopla in the media of late about the success various opera companies have had beaming high definition simulcasts of their performances into cinemas. New York’s Metropolitan Opera can be credited with starting this trend in alternative content back in 2006 when they teamed up with National Cinemedia to launch the Met’s “Live in HD” series. When the 30 odd theaters broadcasting the operas live began to host sell out crowds, the exhibition industry sat up and took notice.

The concept proved so successful for the Met that opera houses around the world began to team up with alternative content companies to distribute their own performances to movie theatres throughout North America, Europe and parts of Asia. In December of 2007, the San Francisco Opera announced that they had reached an agreement with The Bigger Picture to distribute four productions from their current season to cinemas.

“Live in HD” was such a financial hit for the Met that they expanded the number of productions being simulcast from six to eight and the number of screens they appear in from 60 to 230. And if the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, had his way the simulcasts would reach an even wider audience on pay-per-view television. Last November Gelb announced the opera had reached a deal with In Demand Networks to offer the performances through on-deamand cable television 30 days after they are simulcast to theatres. For the Met, which under Gelb has been attempting to broaden its audience base through such opportunities, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, exhibitors didn’t agree.

Instead, theatre owners pitched such a fit that the Met had to cancel its plans to offer the performances on pay-per-view shortly before the broadcast of Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” on January 16th. In a small New York Times article published on January 24th, Gelb said:

“There was this real outcry from the movie theaters. We were not aware they were going to feel this way until we announced we were doing this.”

This seems a bit odd given the ongoing debate between the exhibition and distribution industries over the shrinking theatrical window; the time between the release of a motion picture in theatres and its subsequent release on DVD. Just last year at ShoWest, a theatre industry trade show , John Fithian, the head of the National Assn. of Theater Owners expressed some dismay over the fact that, according to Variety, the theatrical window had shrunk in 2006 to just over four months:

“We are concerned that there was a 10-day shortening overall - that’s more than we have seen in recent years. They [theatrical windows] are getting short enough it’s starting to get dangerous.”

It just goes to show that even with the success the Met had achieved with their simulcasts, it in no way made them experts in the exhibition space. It is probably safe to say that with this little misstep they have learned a valuable lesson about distributing content to movie theatres.

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DDCinema Beams Opera To European Cinemas

By J. Sperling Reich

January 28, 2008

On Sunday January 27th, Distribution Digital Cinema (DDCinema), the joint venture between XDC, Qubo and Dynamic, jump started their operations by broadcasting a live performance of composer Arrigo Boito’s opera “Mefistofele” from the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy to 19 screens located in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

There was no official word on attendance of “Mefistofele” at any of the European theatres or how much tickets cost, but the Teatro Massimo, one of the largest opera houses in the world at 3,500 seats, was sold out with patrons paying top dollar to attend the opening night of the of the season and the first performance of a new production of Boito’s only complete operatic work. The opera, originally based on Goethe’s Faust, was beamed to cinemas via satellite and presented in high-definition.

In an oddly worded press release Elena Rasori, Project Manager of DDCinema seemed quite pleased with the event:

“‘Mefistofele’ was really fine, the singers were excellent and the image quality was really nice and colourful. The lights were modified for the video shooting and the quality was top rate. There was also an introduction by Madleyn Monti of the main artists with short interviews, as well as the plot in English and Italian.”

DDCinema joins a growing number of digital cinema service companies and alternative content distributors delivering live opera and fine arts events to motion picture theatres. AccessIT recently announced they would be simulcasting performances of San Francisco Opera productions to theatres throughout the United States and National Cinemedia started the trend in 2006 by working with the Metropolitan Opera out of New York to do the same. DDCinema seems to be the first company focusing exclusively on broadcasting European events to European cinemas.

The DDCinema partnership was only announced in late December 2007 by the trio of companies as an alternative content distribution initiative. The company will specialize in distributing between 10 and 12 recorded fine arts events to movie theatres each year with a few live broadcasts in the mix. These days that seems to be either operas or ballets filmed in HD, though DDCinema hopes to expand their offerings to sporting events, stage products, concerts, documentaries and even television programs.

While it is nice to see opera making a resurgence amongst patrons, even if it’s at the local multiplex, for such programs to be sustainable on an ongoing basis DDCinema may have to broadcast to more than 19 screens. Presumably the number of screens on which such content will grow over time along with XDC’s install base and the adoption of digital cinema.

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2007 - the Year of Opera at the Movies

By Patrick von Sychowski

December 21, 2007

If there was one true surprise in the digital cinema industry this year it was that people were prepared to pay a premium for a night at the opera at their local multiplex. It was the New York Metropolitan Opera (The Met) that kicked it off in the early days of the new year with a world-wide HD transmission of The Magic Flute. And it is only set to get bigger for the Met next year, as confirmed by this interview with Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met (High-def Opera for the Masses):

Tomorrow, The Met launches its second season of the “Metropolitan Opera: Live in High Definition” - simulcasts at the multiplexes in those cities, among more than 600 movie theaters, performing arts centers and universities worldwide.

That’s triple last year’s number.

Leading off is Charles Gounod’s sensuous “Roméo et Juliette,” starring Netrebko and tenor Roberto Alagna as the doomed lovers, with another legendary tenor, Plácido Domingo, at the podium.

As opera lovers savor the last of this season’s simulcasts April 26 - Gaetano Donizetti’s sparkling “La Fille du Régiment,” with soprano Natalie Dessay in the title role and Flórez in the part that made Luciano Pavarotti famous - “Live in HD” will reach an audience approaching 1 million.

After the Met kicked it off, the rest of the arts and cinema world followed and the phenomenon seemed to grow and grow, with non-live HD play-outs of Glyndbourne Opera in the UK and announcements of the beaming of La Scala to the US. Even other stage-related performances all across the world found favour with local audiences, be they the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Sweden or the Australian Ballet in Sydney, both going out to small towns and villages i the outback normally not touched by this sort of culture. NATO president John Fithian himself declared that he was surprised by this trend.

Rounding of this year comes a confirmation of the trend in that AccessIT has found an opera to climb into bed with by announcing a deal with the San Francisco Opera in a four-year world wide agreement. Significantly a deal with the opera’s unions finally sealed the deal. From the press release:

A landmark revenue sharing agreement with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) and the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) paves the way for these digital cinema presentations and other electronic media projects. The parties have reached a tentative agreement, pending final ratification, for a four-year experimental agreement that involves a supplemental media fee to clear vastly expanded rights for up to six titles per year. In this new agreement, union members would also participate in revenue sharing on top of the supplemental fee. Earned revenue received by San Francisco Opera, less 20% to the Company as a flat all-inclusive distribution and administration fee, would be split 50/50 with the unionized groups, the conductor, and the designers. The Company’s significant capital investment in technology allows for revenue sharing from the first dollar earned rather than from any calculation of net profits.

The New York Times has a very good article looking at the whole trend of operas-with-popcorn. It also nails the key differentiator between the Met and the SFO that could further spell the difference between ‘Encore!’ and ’start sweeping up the popcorn’ for cinemas, which is that “the Met shows its operas live. San Francisco will transmit them after the fact.” While Glyndbourne found and audience, opera lovers prefer their product fresh rather than caned.

Next year we are likely to see big hitters like the Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House enter this space and with it there will be increasing segmentation between A-list and non-A-list operas. There will also be a renewed look at the exclusivity that some of these distribution deals entail for cinema chains. In the case of alternative content for digital cine,a it seem tp be that it ain’t started at your local ‘plex until the Fat Lady sings.

Update: In addition to the ones above, the Washington National Opera is beaming to US college campuses (see here) while north of the border, the National Ballet of Canada is giving Cineplex patrons a taste of The Nutcracker shown live on 69 screens. Detail here.

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