After the disaster of Lohengrin by François Girard, they are Marie-Nicole Lemieux and her castmates Falstaff who were the victims of the technological wanderings that affect the diffusion of the Metropolitan Opera in cinemas in Canada on Saturday at the cinema.

Somehow things are looking good at Cineplex. That was not the case on Saturday during the broadcast Falstaff, Freeze image. The fact remains that the opera was transformed failures (disappearance of sound) recurring, every two or three minutes, in sonic cuts or emmental depending on your cheese culture. Few ” inside joke ‘, even when the final interruption came, Falstaff said, ‘ tutti gabbati ‘, or literally ‘All in one cage’, but in the sense of the booklet ‘We are all fools’!

A technology shift

Explanations were later provided to us by the Cineplex authorities Lohengrin. First, Judy Lung, Director of Communications at Cineplex, said: “Some of our theaters across the country have had technical issues with streaming Lohengrin from the Met Opera on Saturday. We quickly worked with our partners to resolve these issues and will plan for repeats where possible. We apologize to the guests affected by this disruption. »

In detail, we then learned the following: “In late 2022, Cineplex and other cinema operators in Canada switched from broadcasting via satellite to streaming direct streams with high bandwidth, which offers better video and audio quality. Most of the issues encountered over the past weekend are related to this technology update. […] We are currently investigating the extent of the technical issues and are working quickly to resolve them for future live performances. »

It is clear that the two weeks are in between Lohengrin And Falstaff were sufficient to contain the disasters, but did not result in a technological product worthy of the name. We were fooling ourselves as far as the Metropolitan Opera was concerned, as Director of Communications Dan Wakin wrote to us on Thursday: “I have no reason to believe that the problems of recent times will not have been resolved this Saturday and so i expect that Falstaff stands out loud and clear! »

The loophole here is that the Met offers an option ” live at home of the same program and the testimonials from readers confirm that the satellite signal is good, the experience at home is perfect. The Met, however, “geoprotected” its agreement with Cineplex, meaning that music lovers who live near a broadcast cinema can ” live at home “. In view of the always different product qualities, one may ask oneself whether this “geoprotection” does not pose a problem in several respects.

The Met and Cineplex are “fat hard” to have such a tolerant audience. He stayed to see, even in these unfortunate conditions, a magnificently designed show, held by the direction of Daniele Rustioni and ideally distributed stubborn shrewsa radiant Marie-Nicole Lemieux and an imposing Michael Volle in Falstaff in a very oiled show, esthetic and Funny by Robert Carsen.

We’ll let everyone solve their problems for a while. Since 2007 we have been among the very first in the international press to celebrate this extraordinary experience as a new genre. We have faithfully told you to look at the phenomenon artistically, not to narrate epiphenomena, to be classified in the department of detours, pranks and traps.

To see in the video