Far Away, So Close

In this pandemic, with its necessity of physical distancing, opera—known for large-scale, human-intensive productions and larger-than-life immediacy—faces particular challenges. Many companies’ creative approaches to COVID-friendly performance have drawn on the past few decades of live broadcasts to bring their productions to house-bound, worldwide audiences. At the end of this first year, filmed opera produced during the pandemic can be broadly grouped into two main models: traditional videography that captures the onstage action through one or more cameras placed in the auditorium; and a cinematic hybrid approach that treats the performance like a film with no fourth wall, while maintaining the opera’s dramatic structure.