The opera
06/24/2005
this performance was amazing. it was a multimedia mix of live actors, chairs on a stage, big screen projection behind, radio announcements, and story telling. i enjoyed how they used the black stage together with coats lit up so as to appear to be flying around, but really it was an actor holding it up and making animations. i liked how they would interplay with sound, wind, and physical elements to tell a 4 sensory story of the life of chostakovitch. i found it really profound when they had him talking and telling the story of how the stalin called him up and said, you will go to the usa and perform. chostakovitch said, but sir, how am i to respond when they ask me why over 100 places play my music overseas, and yet i am banned in my own country. stalin asked him, banned by who, by what? when in the usa, chostacovitch had to get up for a speech and he didnt know what to say. they handed him a piece of paper for him to read. in the end he went a bit mad and just kept shouting in to the microphone "i am a pupet on a string...a pupet on a string..."
i came away understanding that video dvds can only give us a part of the information. theater has a very valid place in the art world because it's a live performance. each day it's as close to the perfection as they can make it, but every time it will be slightly different. i seen now why face to face is always better, and in the end email, virtual experience, will always be missing one small element: the physical.
nothing can replace the human touch.