In Sunday’s (8/24) New York Times, Michael Cooper reports on multiple streaming services that offer classical music and opera. “Without removing my shoes at a single airport checkpoint, I was able to watch ‘Trauernacht,’ Katie Mitchell’s somber modern staging of Bach cantatas in Aix, check out Anna Netrebko and a baritonal Plácido Domingo in the new production of Verdi’s ‘Il Trovatore’ at Salzburg, and hear the rising young tenor Michael Fabiano sing Alfredo in Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’ from Glyndebourne…. The ‘let a million flowers bloom’ approach that opera houses, orchestras and web services are taking as they experiment with streaming sometimes seems like it might require a million devices to get the best experience from each one.… The closest thing to a classical Netflix may just be Medici.tv, a website that was my ticket to the festivals at Verbier in Switzerland, Aix and Salzburg this summer. It offers webcasts of around 100 live performances a year; they are free when live, and for up to 90 days afterward.… there is certainly lots of great music available.… All in all, it was a pretty good summer of armchair operas and symphonies. But of course there is nothing like the real thing.”
Posted August 27, 2014
Illustration by Brian Cronin / New York Times
