[78-L] Met Opera on the web

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> In the Metropolitan Opera’s relentless quest to exploit all media, the 
> company
> next Wednesday will start making many video and audio broadcasts available 
> for
> Internet streaming on demand.
> A screen from Met Player, a new online service from the Metropolitan 
> Opera.
> Met Player, as the service is called, will be available through the Met’s 
> Web
> site, metopera.org. At its inauguration, on the 125th anniversary of the 
> Met’s
> first show, users will be able to choose from 13 high-definition video
> performances, 37 standard video recordings and 120 audio broadcasts dating 
> to
> 1937. The company said it planned to add performances regularly, drawing 
> on its
> vast historical archives and its continuing high-definition broadcasts.
> The catalog features classics like a “Lucia di Lammermoor” performance 
> with
> Joan Sutherland and one with Maria Callas; a “Walküre” with Birgit Nilsson 
> as
> Brünnhilde; a “Trovatore” with Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli; and a
> “Carmen” with Rosa Ponselle, in one of her rare full-length recorded
> performances. More recently, there are the “Tristan und Isolde” with 
> Deborah
> Voigt and Robert Dean Smith, conducted by James Levine, and “I Puritani” 
> with
> Anna Netrebko, each in high definition.
> For $3.99 or $4.99 per streamed opera, users will have a six-hour window 
> in
> which to listen to or watch a production, once it has started. A monthly
> subscription for $14.99 brings unlimited streaming, while a yearly 
> subscription
> costs $149.99.
>
Well, I shall gladly provide my thoughts; however, that will cost any 
interested
parties $238.46 (or $811.52 in downloadable and savable form...!)

Hey...if the "information highway" is going to become a tollway...whyinell 
ain't
I entitled to my share...?!)

...stevenc