Samson & Delilah at the Ballpark

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"Samson and Delilah" isn't one of my favorite operas, but I had a blast at last night's SF Opera performance in the ballpark. According to SFGate, the crowd was about 15,000 - somewhat less than the rumored 27,000 tickets reserved. But considering the cloudy skies, drizzle, and chilly winds in the hours leading up to the performance, and the fact that the opera house only holds 3,200, it was an impressive number of people. The lines were around the block an hour before they opened the gates. Many of those people had never seen an opera before, and quite a few had young children with them.

Most of the families headed straight for the field. In the 1.5 hours after the gates opened and before the performance began, various entertainments played on the huge (103ft wide) hi-def screen while kids pretended to be Barry Bonds, making hand-waving laps around the bases. Other folks focused on dinner & drinks. There were no bad seats - we wandered around, trying out different spots. The sound was spotty before the performance began, but once the simulcast started, the sound was great everywhere.

The mayor was there (live) and the performers were there (simulcast) giving sports-style "pre-game" interviews. Clifton Forbis (Samson) really got into the spirit of the thing - he was hilarious. General Director David Gockley spoke to the ballpark crowd from backstage, and then he went out front to announce to everyone that the orchestra was going to play the National Anthem to start things off.

I was amazed at how good the simulcast was. Not only the sound, but the visuals. I have some friends in the orchestra and chorus and when I'm at the opera house I consider myself lucky to catch a tiny glimpse of them. But this production uses multiple cameras which zoom into the orchestra pit, pan around the stage, close in on soloists. And someone is picking the shots, occasionally using a split screen. Frankly it's better than being at the opera house. I had to keep reminding myself that this was live - whoever was making those decisions was terrific. (The program lists Frank Zamacona as Simulcast Director and Lisa Anderson as assistant Simulcast Director.)
At one point, when Olga Borodina (Delilah) was belting out her love song, the couple in front me started necking, and a pack of pre-teens started down the aisle with armloads of popcorn & garlic fries, it occurred to me that this was alot like the old days at the drive-in movies. Which is a good thing. If opera is going to survive, this might be good plan.

More photos on my Flickr page and SFGate.

SFGate story about the performance.

Comments

Nancy Ewart said…
It's great to see you posting again! Take care and maybe I'll see you at our Open Studios at the end of October.
8:25 PM
John W. Wall said…
Good to see you back at it, Anna!
9:13 AM
Lynne Rutter said…
nice to see you posting again anna-

and this event sounds a lot like the early days of opera, where people ate and drank and so on through the whole thing. one wasn't expected to sit there lorgnette in hand the whole time.
2:04 PM
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