Like a chord unresolved, or getting mugged just before you get home, so, too, did Massenet's Werther get undercut on the final note.
One of the more heart-wrenching endings in Francophone opera, the would-be dramatic death of German tenor Jonas Kaufmann's title character found little actual sympathy no thanks to the Met's bumbling tech department.
Accidental? Maybe. Frustrating? Absolutely, as the glitch left most theaters silent for the last seven minutes.
So, in this instance, at least, no, the live broadcast was not good for classical music.
And, as we've come to expect, Twitter was there to confirm.
@MetOpera FYI, the sound on your HD transmission has totally been out for about ten minutes now....werther is dying a slow silent death!
— Brad Baron (@BaronAsInRed) March 15, 2014
Surreal. Audio fails during final act of @MetOpera HD Werther... People in movie theater try to listen along with radio simulcast on phones. — Sarah Bruning Meron (@SEB8) March 15, 2014
Again, as to be expected, the Met released a statement:
"The Metropolitan Opera regrets that due to a technical problem with the satellite carrying the audio feed, the sound in today's transmission of Werther was interrupted for the last seven minutes of the performance, which affected the majority of U.S. theaters."
Hmm, sounds like Peter Gelb needs to get on Verizon.
In all fairness, though, the Met posted Werther's true ending to their website on Sunday--claiming that the encore performance wasn't slighted.
Be that as it may, here's a 2005 performance with the ending in tact. It's better that way.
