Placido Domingo backs NY Met's opera at cinema push

NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Reuters) Placido Domingo says he has a dream. He's in Vienna at 2 am and his yearning to see the performance taking place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York is instantly fulfilled by switching on a television.

The renowned Spanish tenor's dream may not be far from reality in the digital age.

Domingo is singing in one of six Met operas scheduled in coming months to have a performance broadcast live to an audience of tens of thousands in movie theaters across the United States, Canada, Britain, Denmark, Norway and Japan.

The first high-definition broadcast of the series, called ''Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD,'' begins today with Mozart's ''The Magic Flute.'' Based on advanced ticket sales, it could reach more than 30,000 people.

It may not yet be Domingo's dream of watching opera live anywhere at any time, but the move by the 123-year-old New York institution to broadcast live via satellite to more than 150 cinemas worldwide is its latest effort to expand opera's global audience.

''With this new public, they will be exposed to opera, maybe they will go to the cinema and they are tempted,'' said the 65-year-old Domingo, who helped bridge classes and cultures when he sang with Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras in ''The Three Tenors Concert'' for the 1990 soccer World Cup.

Domingo said the cinema broadcasts would not only please opera lovers in foreign cities who cannot attend the opera in person, but also help gain new fans for what some see as an elitist domain.

''There are two kinds of public that don't go to the opera,'' the silver-haired conductor and tenor told Reuters on a break from rehearsing at the Met for his starring role in ''The First Emperor,'' to be broadcast in cinemas January 13.

''People that cannot afford it -- for them it is a more difficult problem,'' he said. ''But for people who say they don't like it, maybe simply for them they have not been exposed. So with cinema, it is a great possibility for everybody.'' For ''The Magic Flute,'' ticket prices are 18 dollar in the United States and 12 pounds in Britain, with more information on tickets and theaters participating available at www.metoperafamily.org/hdlive.

OPERA IN THE DIGITAL ERA The cinema series is the latest move by the Met, under the direction of a new general manager, to attract new fans as it competes with other forms of entertainment.

It cut the cost of its cheapest seats to 15 dollar from 26 dollar for ''The Magic Flute,'' while raising the highest-priced tickets from 320 dollar to 375 dollar in a bid to get wealthier patrons to subsidize poorer ones.

Two months ago it set up a free live broadcast of Puccini's ''Madama Butterfly,'' directed by filmmaker Anthony Minghella, on a giant screen in New York's Times Square. Around the same time, it launched a 24-hour satellite radio channel featuring live and archived broadcasts.

The man behind it all, the Met's general manager Peter Gelb, put it simply upon launching the cinema series: ''Opera will now enter the digital era.'' Gelb told Reuters the opera world could learn from the marketing approach of other entertainment forms without losing its core audience.

Faced with falling ticket sales since 2001, Gelb said new labor agreements cut the Met's cost of operas by half and gave the institution control of electronic content.

''We are creating an opera equivalent of a movie rollout,'' Gelb said, of the different mass media initiatives introduced in his first year on the job.

''It would be foolish to say that opera is for everybody, but its potential is as broad as the sophisticated modern theater and films that have a significant global audience.

''If somebody can see a play or show on Broadway then they should be able to see a well-produced opera,'' he said.

Gelb is not alone in his vision.

Sitting in the Met's cafeteria on a break from rehearsal, ''The First Emperor'' composer and conductor Tan Dun talked of opera houses around the world collaborating to reach new, larger audiences.

''My dream is there will be 10,000 opera houses that will perform this opera,'' said Dun, whose opera has been inspired by music from the East and West. ''What we need to do now is new things, changing everybody's view, changing the market.'' But if opera becomes as commercial as Broadway or as mainstream as Hollywood, won't it lose some of its magic? Domingo, whose upcoming book, ''The Joy of Opera,'' touches on his vision for the future of opera, said he doesn't think so.

''I don't think it will ever be a real business,'' he said.

''But I just dream that, yes, it is normal that everybody can connect to it ... if you want to hear an important performance.

I really hope then it will be so much more.'' Reuters AB GC0950