We are listening
UPDATE: The Traviata chat is beginning in preparation for the 8:00 start time of tonight’s performance.
The real-time chat, as always, is at La Casa della Cieca.
If you’re not a current Sirius subscriber, this is as good a time as any to take advantage of the free trial of the service offered on the Sirius website. (Photo: Marty Sohl / Metropolitan Opera)
For an adequate time, call Betsy Ann. No job too small
Does anybody want to try to sell me on Sirius? They’re offering a 30-day free trial (as Die Blinde tells us), but I can’t find any indication on their website of what the monthly charge is after that. Is there anything <> on Sirius (besides Met broadcasts) that I can’t get on free Internet radio?
Miles, I think it’s in the $13 to $15 a month range. You get about five or six recordings of Met broadcasts a day, each repeating a couple of times in a week, plus three live broadcasts a week during the season. Some weeks, it seems as if they have one amazing recording after another. Other weeks, nothing looks that good.
Obviously, it’s only Met recordings, so there’s a kind of built in narrow range. On the other hand, the price includes all the sirius channels, so there’s other kinds of music too (including Broadway).
LMM — With credit card services charges, finance charges, unconnected toilet charges, and “we-can’t-tell-if-you’re-gay-or-not-but-we-have-our-suspicions” charges, I pay $14.85 a month, plus a stamp to mail the check.
In the first two years, there were usually seven new archives broadcasts each week, plus six repeats, all of which were played thrice at varying times. Then it dropped to four, then two, then one a week. Now it’s maybe one new broadcast every month. Last year there were four live broadcasts each week during the Met season; now it’s three. If you’re recording the broadcast, you have to contend with the fact that every ninety minutes they put in a BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP to make sure you’re still listening. If you’re not sitting right there to respond, they cut you off.
If it weren’t for the fact that it used to be better, I would tell you it is worth it during the opera season but not so much in the summer. As it is, it’s just about the only game in town. The other “good music” channels are not much to get excited about. But if you like Howard Stern and football, there’s lots of that.
“Loveable as he may be, Humpty is in for a might big fall.” Quanto Painy Fakor, I don’t know how lovable James Levine might be, but he sure is one stupendous musician who seems to be in trouble right now. I am sure he regrets how how much weight he’s put on and the general deterioration of his health; not to mention all the pain he’s probably in just moving around. I feel a lot of compassion for him. He will be greatly missed if he can’t return to conducting. Fortunately, he’s still a master pianist. ANYONE who listens to the “Forgotten Songs of Claude Debussy” with Dawn Upshaw (Maestro Levine at the piano) must feel the sadness I felt when I read the NYT article.
Betsy, you’re right. The Sirius archive broadcasts have been a real disappointment of late. They’re getting really lazy broadcasting new old stuff. I’m still waiting for just one broadcast of Gilda Cruz-Romo. Still nothing yet. The whole operation seems like it’s on autopilot.
Jeeze, Peter, I thought there was one. A DON CARLO maybe; I’ll have to look it up. My big unpicked nit is that there has never been an archival PELLEAS, BORIS, or KHOVANSCHINA, even though we ‘ve gotten every CLEMENZA DI TITO and LULU ever aired.
Sorry, Peter, my error. Zylis-Gara and Curtis-Verna led me astray with their infernal hyphens.
I get driven a little bonkers by the limited pieces they play in between the full-length operas. It seems to me like they have about 10 or 15 CD’s and they just have them on permanent rotation (yes, I am exaggerating, but still… Flicka is very nice, yes, but I don’t need to hear her French Opera Arias for the 600th time. Or Ian Bostridge singing anything at all ever again).
I have written what I like to think are really really helpful, useful suggestions to the e-mail address on the met/sirius channel, but have not heard back a whisper. Which makes sense, because I don’t think there is anything there except the 15 or so CD’s and a tumbleweed blowing through their office.
What I would like to hear would be a more curated approach: an actual human – or several of them – who talk about what they’ve selected to play, why they’ve selected them, what’s interesting about them, etc. I am sure they have absolutely no budget, but I am sure they would have plenty of volunteers if they switched to such a model. And I am also sure they could find plenty of volunteers with extensive music libraries.
Well, I think it’s a good idea anyway.
Actually, I suspect that many of the parterreans would have amazing radio shows should the heavens open and bestow them with such a platform…