Streaming Norma at the Met

With the rest of the opera season canceled – everywhere – The Met has been offering free nightly streams of operas previously recorded for their HD broadcasts. Scheduling time for an opera in front of the TV is in some ways harder than making time to attend a performance, but on Sunday, April 5, I finally blocked out an afternoon for my own Sunday matinee stream of Norma by Bellini.

Remote Opera

When I met Seattle Opera’s scholar in residence, Naomi Andre, she told me that when she was growing up, opera was primarily an auditory experience. People who were privileged enough to live in cities like New York or Seattle with local opera companies, and who were privileged enough to be able to afford tickets, could witness the full theatrical spectacle of opera. But most Americans purchased records and heard opera on the radio – generally, live broadcasts of performances at The Met.

The Met, of course, is The Metropolitan Opera in New York, arguably America’s most-respected opera company, inarguably its largest both in physical size (it seats 3800 people) and in programming (performing over two dozen operas in a given season, almost nightly and often simultaneously).

In recent years The Met has expanded from radio broadcasts to high definition video recordings of some of its productions. These are live streamed to more than 2,000 cinemas around the world, including one near my house. I only discovered that fact a few months ago.

McCaw Hall is as close to my house as Oak Tree Cinema. And there are enough money-saving options for Seattle Opera ticket-buyers that the cost of a cinema ticket isn’t much less that a live show. So I have been one of those privileged people for whom the full theatrical spectacle of opera has always been accessible. But for the sake of blogging and novelty, I intended to attend a cinema HD stream. I just didn’t get around to it before the pandemic.

Streaming the Met

Then, when it became apparent that even at The Met, the show must not go on, The Met decided to open their vaults and make some of these HD recordings available for free streaming. Each day at 6:30 pm New York time, a different opera is posted on their website. It remains there for 23 hours. The schedule of free operas is published online, together with text-only program booklets and other supplementary content.

You don’t get a reputation like the Met’s doing things by halves. So the video quality is excellent. Thankfully, they do not follow the old school approach of setting up a camera in the back of the auditorium to capture the whole stage and leaving it there. Instead, they use cinematic camera work with close ups of faces and a moving focus to follow the action, sometimes even peeking into the orchestra pit for a look at the conductor or a soloist. The result is that you see just a little bit more than you would if you had the best seats in the house. The sound, too, is excellent – crystal clear and somehow free from audience noise.

About Norma

Norma is one of the best-known operas by Bellini. Vincenzo Bellini is considered one of the big three composers of bel canto opera. I’ve seen several operas by the other two – Rossini and Donizetti – as well as a lot of Verdi and Puccini who aren’t classified as bel canto but they sure sound pretty. But I had never seen anything by Bellini. Supposedly one of the reasons he is not performed as often is because there aren’t many performers who can handle his roles. Now that I’ve seen Norma, I believe that. I couldn’t tell a high C from a fruit drink, but even I could tell that Norma’s first aria was a master class in technique.

The story: Norma is a druid priestess who has broken her vow of chastity and borne two children to an officer of the occupying Roman army, Pollione. Now Pollione has grown bored with her and is pursuing her apprentice, Adalgisa, whom he intends to take home to Rome. Adalgisa confesses her love of a Roman soldier to Norma, who forgives her, thinking about her own forbidden love. The two women then discover they are singing about the same soldier and all hell breaks loose. After a dark night of the soul full of regret and revenge fantasies, Norma and Adalgisa both recenter on duty and faith. Norma sacrifices herself to the gods in penance, and a repentant Pollione chooses to join her on the pyre.

Streaming Norma

Despite the high quality of the stream, it wasn’t quite the same as watching it in the theater. The background noise of the dishwasher running and my family going about their afternoon upstairs was a bit more insistent than the occasional cough or rustling candy wrapper at the theater. On the other hand, my couch was a lot more comfortable than even the best auditorium seating, and I didn’t have to wait for intermission to refill my wine glass. Overall, the experience wasn’t quite as immersive as being there. But it was close enough that at least once I almost forgot myself and applauded at the end of an aria.

Whether for their tragic stories, sheer beauty, or plain biological appoggiatura, several operas have made me cry – my first Rigoletto, a couple of Bohemes – but I was glad to be in my basement for Norma, where my sobs couldn’t disturb any other patrons. Because Norma’s first aria isn’t just technically impressive, it is overwhelming.

Unexpected Norma

For predating a lot of the problematic operas we all love, Norma is unexpectedly feminist. The main character is a powerful woman who leads her people. Yes, in a sense, she dies tragically for love. But she doesn’t sacrifice herself for a man or worse, for his happiness. She literally sacrifices herself to her god in penance for prioritizing love over duty. Sondra Radvanovsky really opens up the internal emotions of the character. After all her woman-scorned passion and self-doubt, the way she pulls herself together at the last minute and does what needs to be done makes her character all the more impressive. She’s a powerful figure, but no automaton.

The big duet of the aria is not a love song between the tenor and soprano. Instead, it’s when the soprano Norma and her mezzo apprentice Adalgisa sing together. Basically, they are singing about how tough it is to be a woman as Adalgisa confesses and Norma, her mentor, remembers her own failures and forgives; later Adalgisa talks Norma back from the edge. It’s a bit strange to hear a mezzo in the role of the younger woman, but Joyce DiDonato’s Adalgisa is not just an ingenue. She may be younger than Norma, and she may be swayed by a handsome soldier. But she has too much strength of character to betray a friend. Once she finds out who Pollione really is, she writes him off without a second thought. I don’t know if I’ve seen a stronger example of female friendship in opera – or any other popular media.

Their shared object of affection, Pollione, is a Pinkerton-level cad, and in this production tenor Joseph Calleja really leans into the despicableness of the character, to the point that it’s almost hard to imagine these two strong women falling for him. But he had the biggest arc of all the characters, and it’s impressive that after all that sneering, Calleja is able to make us believe in Pollione’s remorse and redemption.

I guess there’s a reason The Met is so famous. I’m still grateful to live so close to the home of Seattle Opera. And in this time of pandemic, it’s easy to remember why I live in Seattle instead of New York. But when this is all over, I’m making a pilgrimage to see opera live at The Met.

Norma Details

Norma

Music by Vincenzo Bellini
Libretto by Felice Romani
In Italian with English captions
Premiere: December 26, 1831
Metropolitan Opera Performance: Saturday, October 7, 2017, 1PM
Approximate Running Time: 3 hours 5 minutes with extra features

 Cast

Conductor
Carlo Rizzi

Norma
Sondra Radvanovsky

Adalgisa
Joyce DiDonato

Pollione
Joseph Calleja

Oroveso
Matthew Rose