Jon Johanning wrote: >I have just seen the future in the NY Times, and I really doubt that it's >going to work. > >Anthony Tommasini has an article today about Operaworks, a unique opera >company founded by one David Leighton in 1983. Leighton has found an >effective way of bringing down the high cost of producing opera: he has >singers in his company and a conductor to conduct them, but the orchestra >is only virtual. I can attest from first-hand experience -- it doesn't work. I attended a performance of Operaworks' *Ariadne auf Naxos* (one of my very favorite operas and one which I can practically sing in my sleep) last summer, not realizing that they used a "virtual orchestra". I knew something was up when the program was accompanied by a 10 page or so handout explaining the virtual orchestra and protesting that it was employed for artistic(and by implication, not financial) reasons. Right. The rationale went something like "the singers get to know exactly how the score will be played and there will be no "surprises" from the orchestra during performances". The simulation of real orchestral instruments wasn't awful, but the canned quality of the orchestral accompaniment didn't allow the music to breathe. Often, singers were out of synch with the accompaniment and in a number of cases, the singers' playing catch-up bordered on "train wreck". It's a shame, because the singers generally had fine voices (particularly the women singing Zerbinetta and the Composer). Luckily opera houses such as the Met can still afford (though admittedly not always without some effort) to produce productions with real orchestras and will hopefully never stoop to such cost cutting measures. Rich Putter [log in to unmask]