Vintage Post Card of the
War Memorial Opera House and Veterans Building
San Francisco, CA
Collection of Lisa Hirsch
Should an opera company admit publicly that the most expensive seats in the house don't have the best sound? Maybe, maybe not, but San Francisco Opera just did it, by omission, in their email to patrons about the new season, which opens tonight:
CHOOSE YOUR OPERA ADVENTURE
Where you sit in the Opera House can affect your experience! Want the best sound? We recommend the Grand Tier, Dress Circle, or even Balcony seats! Ready for the best views of the stage? Try out the Orchestra for an up close and personal experience.
The story is really more nuanced than that; I have found the orchestral sound absolutely gorgeous in about row M or so of the orchestra section (but fond memories of finding soprano Christine Goerke a little recessed from the orchestra, and she is definitely loud). Not to mention, the orchestra section is very big and you can be very far from the stage if you sit there!
And I've also found the sound in the back of the balcony extremely immediate (the singers sound as though they are ten feet away) but also a little harsh and blarey. Definitely don't sit near the walls in the Grand Tier and Dress Circle!
That said, you can stream tonight's open concert, with Roberto Alagna and Alexandra Kurzak. Details are on the SFO web site.
2 comments:
Not quite the same as pricing tiers, but in my experience, orchestras’ VIP seats in concert halls are chosen for their easy accessibility to the private lounge rather than acoustic experience. Not a problem in a superb hall where virtually every seat is good, but at times it has been difficult not to feel sorry for those important people in the “royal box” while sitting in the back row of the stalls enjoying glorious sound. On the plus side, this practice means the best seats tend to be available for ordinary music-loving concert-goers to purchase.
My experience with the upper balcony is that the sound is subtler & more blended, but the seating is tighter & the performers are tiny (OperaVision didn't help much when I made my experiment; the director never focused on what I wanted to see & the colors are much flatter -- it's also a bit distracting to see the action going on simultaneously in tiny & huge scale.) If you view opera as theater, the Orchestra is much preferable, as you can actually see what is going on & how the performers are expressing themselves physically, & I find the sound there has an immediacy, & sometimes a rawness & imbalance, that can be appealing than the smoother sound in the balcony. Saying that one section has the "best" sound implies that there is a single type of sound that is of course "best", & puts, if I can express it this way, a certain type of musical experience over the theatrical aspects of opera. In short: you pay your money (sometimes quite a lot), & you take your choice.
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