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Live-streaming music at the Met, Bang on a Can, and elsewhere.
CAPTION: The Met’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conducted into the void. IMAGE CREDIT: Illustration by Claire Merchlinsky
Classical musicians, like their counterparts in the rest of the performing arts, have been trying to find a second life online during the pandemic shutdown. Pianists have streamed recitals from their homes; orchestras have used the Zoom app to create virtual ensembles; small groups have assembled in empty halls. Any discussion of this activity, encouraging as it is, must take into account that it unfolds against a backdrop of misery. The livelihood of thousands of musicians has been shattered overnight. People have been lost; grief runs deep. There should be no talk—I have seen some—of classical music “thriving” on the Internet. No one is thriving. No one is making money. No one is free from fear.
With that in mind, I’ve been glued to my computer in recent weeks, consuming live-streamed events around the world. As a critic, I am desperate to maintain contact with what musicians are doing, thinking, and feeling. The sound is often tinny, the stage patter awkward, the home décor distracting. One could instead sample archived professional-quality videos that opera houses, orchestras, and other organizations have placed online. For me, though, the live or freshly recorded happenings matter more. They document, with the oblique power that the arts possess, an extraordinary human phase in history. Their mere existence is bracing, and at times they achieve startling power.
One such moment arrived about forty minutes into the Metropolitan Opera’s “At-Home Gala,” a four-hour all-star program that took place on April 25th. After an affecting appearance by Renée Fleming, the screen filled with images of Met Orchestra players at home, holding their instruments. In the rectangle at the center was Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, conducting into the void. He led a prerecorded performance of the Intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana”—some of...