Opera in Video (review)

Alexander Street Press’s database Opera in Video is designed to support academic libraries that serve music programs. Offering 500 hours and 290 works, it covers the span of operatic history, including contemporary works. The database also covers a wide range of performing styles, with singers from the early 20^th century as well as more recent stars. Most of the videos offered have been released previously in DVD and/ or VHS formats from such labels as Kultur, Opus Arte, and Bel Canto Society, but Opera in Video also includes a substantial collection from the BBC that has not been released in the U.S. in hard copy. While it does not offer every available performance of a given opera or even all operas that have been released on DVD, Opera in Video does include at least one performance of operas that are likely to be included in music history classes at the undergraduate level.

The database is constructed to work as a teaching tool. Selections—either complete operas or individual scenes—can be added to playlists for specific course requirements. One may browse names (singers, conductors, stage directors and designers, choreographers, composers, librettists), as well as venues, ensembles, roles, genres, eras of composition, and the nature of the video (performance, documentary, biography, animation, interview). Advanced searching offers limiters for language, subtitle options, and recording date. Terms can be combined using Boolean operators to refine the search.

The videos are streamed (not downloaded) at 400 kbps in the standard viewing mode and 800 kbps in the enlarged mode, which is approximately one third of the computer’s screen to allow for indexing of the “tracks” at the side, which provide instant access to a particular scene. There is no zoom option and I found no way to enlarge the image to the full screen. The load time is generally quick. Playlists are easy to create and access to them can be restricted to the creator, students enrolled in a class, or anyone who has access to the database, either within the institution or elsewhere. Each indexed chapter in the video has an “add to playlist” icon. Should one decide that Lucia’s entire mad scene is too long, or if one wants just the B section of a Handel da capo aria, one can use the “make clip” option to shorten an excerpt or jump to a particular section. The list creator can add annotations for each excerpt as well. Thumbnail images from the beginning of each indexed scene are available for viewing, and there is even a “Print Screen” button that opens a more printer-friendly version of the screen.

The sound and image quality varies greatly according to the date of the film or performance. Most of the selections are of more recent vintage and derive from actual stage productions. The bulk of the more recent videos are from the 1990s and early 2000s and offer performances by the major stars of those years (lots of Domingo, Pavarotti, Te Kanawa, etc.) in productions from the world’s major opera houses, but offerings from some of today’s most stage-savvy stars—Natalie Dessay, Reneé Fleming, Jonas Kaufmann, to name a few—are limited to one video each. Many of the older films represent singers from the pre-World War II era and come from the Bel Canto Society catalog. The audio and video quality is no better than what had been released on VHS copies, and those recordings that had no subtitles in that format are still without them now. This is especially problematic with such selections as Abel Gance’s 1939 film of Gustave Charpentier’s Louise, which eliminated most of the music and played the drastically rewritten text as spoken dialogue. The interest...