Just back from seeing Verdi’s Macbeth at the movie theatre, courtesy of the Met’s Live in HD. First of all, it was aMAZing. Anna Netrebko… holy shit. :eek: If you’re in New York, get there to the Metropolitan Opera House post haste; if not, the Live in HD encore is Wednesday night here in the states.
Anyway, courtesy of HD and a big screen, I couldn’t help but notice that Noah Baetge, the tenor playing Malcolm, was wearing some sort of an earpiece. Anyone have any idea what the story was? I don’t believe it’s typical for performers to be getting instructions from the back or such. Is Mr Baetge just hard of hearing? (Which would seem to be a bit of a thing in that particular profession, but he’s doing alright if he’s playing the Met!)
It could be audio from an offstage prompter. Sure, he probably remember all the words, but why chance it? Or it could just be the music from the orchestra. Sets and costumes get bigger and more complex, and the distance between the singer and the musicians grows. An in ear monitor will insure the singer can hear the orchestra as if he were standing right next to it
First up, Malcolm’s role was really very tiny. He basically shows up in the fourth act, hangs out, watches Macduff kill Macbeth, and gets crowned King. Seriously, he probably got a six-figure paycheck, but he didn’t have much to do.
Aside from that, we actually have a thing to deal with our opera singers forgetting their lines. There is a little thing in the stage with someone whose job it is to feed the operacritters lines–no earpiece necessary. Really–look for a little hut in the middle of the stage, up at the front. Someone lives in there and feeds the performers lines if they need them. No need for an earpiece. Also, fwiw: nobody else had this, that I noticed.
I know about the prompter, but that requires that the actor look at the prompter. Maybe this guy is testing a new wireless prompter system, so he can be prompted without having to break off from doing that stuff that passes for “acting” in opera.