The Metropolitan Opera plans to expand still further its live high-definition simulcasts into movie theaters around the world for the 2007-8 season, potentially tripling the audience for these broadcasts to an estimated one million viewers.
“In the movie-theater industry, this is one of the talked-about events of last season,” said Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. “For the first time, alternative content can actually command an audience ...”
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We’ve created the opera equivalent of the Hollywood movie roll-out,” he said, citing the now standard trajectory of a studio film from movie theaters to pay-per-view to DVD to television. “We’re in negotiation with In Demand, the lead supplier of pay-per-view to cable networks,” he said, “and there is every expectation we will conclude an agreement with them in the next few weeks.” PBS has also renewed its commitment to feature the broadcasts, and five will ultimately be released as DVDs under the Met’s new agreement with EMI.
