The Technology of Le nozze di Figaro by Mark Schubin

The Technology of “The Marriage of Figaro”

In October 2014, the Metropolitan Opera transmitted The Marriage of Figaro live from its technologically advanced stage to more than 2000 cinemas worldwide.  The opera can also be enjoyed at home via TV, radio, recordings, downloads, and streams.  The Marriage of Figaro was first performed in 1786, however, based on a play first performed two years earlier.  What stage and home-media technologies were available then?  You might be amazed.  And might then-new technologies have affected the plot if it were written just a few years later?

Presented at the Princeton Festival, Princeton, NJ on June 15, 2015.

Direct Link ( 74 MB / TRT 35:33):
The Technology of Le nozze di Figaro

Embedded:

Tags: Amato Opera, Argand Burner, Beaumarchais, Borodin, Chappe telegraph, Drottningholms Slottsteater, Faraday, Figaro, first electric telegraph, first flashlight, Galileo, Gatti Casazza, Giacomo Torelli, Jascha Horenstein, Kepler, Lavoisier, Metropolitan Opera, Mozart, Nicola Sabbattini, Princeton Festival, serinette, shirley-quirk, vogelorgel, Wiener Burgtheater,