Your reactions: Maestro at the Opera
A selection of your tweets about the new BBC series
Trainee conductors Trevor Nelson, Josie Lawrence, Craig Revel Horwood and Professor Marcus du Sautoy
Trainee conductors Trevor Nelson, Josie Lawrence, Craig Revel Horwood and Professor Marcus du Sautoy
Or how about 'On the Defensive' a new opera commissioned by the ROH board with a score by Michael Nyman.
Better still, work out how much this tacky show cost the BBC to make and ROH to house, and see how many seats in the Amphitheatre could have been given away for the same sum.
For example, to under-25s currently on £50 a week Jobseekers Allowance.
I'm sure they can just about grasp Rodolfo and Mimi's plight even if it is sung in Italian.
Lack of cash seems to me a bigger bar to visiting the House than lack of intelligence.
We have lots of ways of making our performances accessible. Here are just a few:
- Standby Tickets: cheap tickets available to those on Income Support, ES40 holders, deaf and disabled people, under-18s, Westminster ResCardholders, WC2 residents and Senior Citizens receiving Pension Credits http://www.roh.org.uk/visit/tickets
- Student Standby: students can see selected ballets and operas for £10 http://www.roh.org.uk/for/students
- Welcome Performances: cheap matinee tickets for families who haven't visited the Royal Opera House before http://www.roh.org.uk/learning/families/welcome-performances
We're also relaying La bohème, Falstaff and Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 to big screens around the UK for free. Can't get much cheaper than that! http://www.roh.org.uk/about/bp-big-screens
Even as a committed dance fan, I am finding the BBC Maestro series fascinating - although I remain sceptical about how many appreciative 'bums on seats' will actually result from its showing. Now that RB tickets have hit the £100 mark (yes, I don't have to sit in the Stalls, but the habits of a lifetime are hard to break) I find that the cinema relays provide an excellent alternative, reserving my money for 'must see' shows live at ROH - even though I have to suffer an increasing number of undisciplined Tweeters ('Twits'?!) continuing after curtain up!
See my tweet posted by ROH. An hour long programme can only skim the surface of the complexity of conducting. I remember with fear conducting class at music college, trying to lie low so I wouldn't be picked to brandish the baton before my peer group
I enjoyed watching the second episode, but if the aim of the series "is to open up the wonderful world of an opera house to the contestants and to the viewers", part of me feels that a trick has been missed. There's very little follow up which, when I've tried to encourage new people into opera, is the important bit: "I like the music, but I don't know what it is. / Will I like this?" etc
Appetite whetted by excerpts from La Traviata, Don Giovanni and Die Fledermaus, I wish that the BBC had broadcast a complete performance after tonight's show. Or perhaps a concert of arias from those operas with Mark Elder conducting the same singers. Will there be a full screening of Boheme after the final, if not on BBC2, perhaps BBC 4, or some "extras" via the "red button"? Or a re-broadcast of Tony Pappano's Opera Italia? I know that the BBC and ROH are said to have a special relationship.
The winner is conducting an act of La Boheme, but this will not be screened until after the live, free Summer Screens broadcast. Could this not have been linked up in some way? Boheme is also being performed in June: could the Maestro winner not have conducted then too, even in rehearsals, with an audience of Maestro viewers, either as a free event or for a nominal fee. The ROH has always said that, once people were through the door, they usually returned. A morning rehearsal of Boheme may have made an afternoon concert possible.
I hope that this programme does help bring in new audiences to opera and to the ROH. Couldn't the website have a Maestro section. If your interest is piqued by the show and you visit the ROH website, where do you go after looking at the homepage? A Maestro icon with some further arias, composer insight, additional interviews or clips may have helped.