“It happens with every opera company, from the most modest to the most extravagant: technical difficulties. And it happened Friday when the Teatro Lirico D’Europa gave the first of three performance of Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’ at the Cutler Majestic Theatre,” T.J. Medrek writes for The Boston Herald. “‘Boheme’ is the kind of hardy perennial that can survive much – it is, after all, the inspiration for the Broadway show ‘Rent’ – even the poltergeist that plagued Teatro Lirico’s computerized system of projected English translations of the opera’s Italian text.”
Medrek writes, “Indeed at times the performance seemed like a buggy product rollout from Bill Gates. (Hint: Get these folks a Mac Mini.) It began with the words ‘Microsoft Windows’ looming large over the cold Parisian attic that is the first act’s setting. Mimi’s famous aria ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’ was accompanied by a Norton Anti-Virus system scan that filled the wall – talk about product placement! – behind soprano Steffanie Pearce. And so on.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: MDN reader “Alan” sent us this link and also provided the take in his email: “When an article about an opera mentions a mac mini, it means something big must be going on. This thing has crossed over into the public consciousness beyond the tech geeks.”
[Update, 11:05am ET: fixed Herald attribution]
Man, what a nightmare! I do media design for theatre and light opera a lot, and this is the kind of thing you dread (and _should_ plan for!).
Fortunately for me, I use a Mac (or several) for my shows, and have never had a single melt-down. I would quit doing this work if I had to use a Windows PC; I couldn’t stand the stress!
Magic word: local. As in, think globally, act locally!
I want my opera experience to be without Windows!!
magic word “World”
joe
This would be right up the mini’s alley. Cheaner’n chips too.
On a recent visit to a theatre the fan noise from the PCs controlling lighting and effects a few rows behind me was disconcerting, it certainly diminshed my enjoyment of the play.
Mac minis are great for many situations, they’re going to become ubiquitous.
The article was in the Boston Herald, not the venerable Boston Globe. Get your facts straight Stephen Glass!
Hahahaha!
You ever notice they don’t put those “Plays for Sure” logos on Windows Desktops/Laptops/Servers?
Hey, it’s totally appropriate – the whole Windows experience is a big opera: hubris, wealthy villians, larger-than-life tragedy, and you never know how it’s going to come out!
I don’t think I’d be impressed shelling out a few hundred bucks for an opera ticket or two, and then have this occur during the performance. I am there for Puccini, Verdi or Tosca, not Bill Gates.
Good advertising tho – for what NOT to buy.
woops, I meant Mozart, not Tosca.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
NoPCZone: LOL!
notatotalsucker,
As if anyone here would know if Tosca was a real person or not, let alone whether he or she ever wrote an Opera.
Paul,
You might say not only do you not want Bill Gates, but his buddy BSOD – (Bluebeard Screen of Death)!
The Mac mini is taking the world by storm. My brother in law is now talking about getting 4 of them. One for him, one for his mother, one for his father, and one for his little brother in law. That way they can all stay in touch with iChat. He is also talking about putting on an event between a local gym in Japan and the one his brother runs in Germany. They will have it all connected with Macs and ichat so they can have a contest going on simultaneously. Pretty cool.