On fourteenth February, one of the world’s most eminent opera hos plugged in. Milan’s La Scala launched its digital platform, LaScalaTV, and for the first time, opened up the ho to a worldwide audience. Featuring livestreamed and on-demand content, the platform aims to reach an international audience and create its archive of the opera ho’s wealthy history of performance and production widely accessible. “I’m in the shoes of a ballet-lover, and an opera-lover. I think it's so fascinating to be able to access performances the past,” said La Scala CEO and Artistic Director Dominique Meyer in a press conference earlier this year.
“I dream of discovering those treasures that I could only look on a very tiny TV set when I was a child.” “I’ve always had this dream of allowing people to rediscover these pearls the past, and authorize more and more people to [join] our international audience. That's what this project is all about.” Watching live operas and ballets will cost around $18.60 for HD (around $22.40 for ultra-HD). On-demand and pre-recorded concerts, recitals and children’s content will be around $13 at its priciest, and $5.50 at its cheapest. Some La Scala content will be made free for schools in an effort to connect more youthful children with opera. LaScalaTV’s current catalogue includes Thaïs, La Clisto and I Capuleti east i Montecchi. Ballet titles comprise Giselle, Madina and Sylvia.
Announced upcoming live streams comprise a performance celebrating the completion of physical redevelopment of the venue on eleventh May at 6:45PM AEST, and a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. eight (below the baton of Riccardo Chailly) on twenty-first May (at 3AM AEST, for early birds and night owls). During intermission in livestreamed events, LaScalaTV opens the curtain for backstage access and offers perspectives on the opera ho itself and the works and artists it presents. In its recording of performances, La Scala will prioritise a broader view of the stage rather than an intimate one, as if its audience were “sitting in the fifth row of the stalls.”
It will emphasise a more natural, “neutral” viewing experience – minimising cuts, capturing the reaction of cast members while they’re not singing and ensuring that a dancer’s whole performance fits into frame. LaScalaTV is portion of a larger thrust for the modernisation of the opera ho, whose second phase of physical redevelopment is presently coming to a close. In-person audiences can presently view subtitles on back-of-seat ts, while digital audiences are able to look broadcasts in five different languages; with the service devoting efforts towards an ultimate goal of eight languages.
“This is very much the universal message of music,” said Meyer. “Reach out to people, ver they are, both domestic and international.”
