There’s been a bit of jokey banter in comments on posts about various Historically Informed Productions about Historically Informed Audiences.  The serious point being that we don’t watch opera in the same way the audience did in Handel’s day and, of course, we don’t perceive it in the same way.  There’s nothing one can do about the perception but it did occur to me that the way I watch DVDs is, in some ways, more like Handel’s audience than the way I watch/listen when I am at a live performance.  This struck me yesterday as I was watching a rather good production from Zürich of Handel’s Orlando.  I’ll be writing more about that later. 

At home, the atmosphere is less immersive than in the hushed and darkened opera house.  I can get up and get a drink.  I can pet the cat (or get bitten for not petting the cat).  I can check an important email if one comes in while I’m watching.  And so on.  The point being that my attention level wanders.  If the recitative explaining the plot of a well known story becomes rather tedious I can tune it out until the next exciting aria.  I don’t, of course though, throw orange peel at the TV to express my disapproval.  When I reflect on the difference between this experience and the degree of concentration I deploy when watching even an utterly tedious production live I get a real sense of what Handel was up to.  Of course he used stories his audience knew.  They were going to miss big chunks and, besides, few of them spoke Italian.  He couldn’t afford for the work to turn on complex plot points!

I think it also helps explain why I like my baroque opera radically reimagined.  The canny purveyors of both court entertainments and commercial opera were giving their patrons what they wanted; something that wasn’t intended to engage their full attention.  On the other hand if I’m stuck in a dark theatre for three hours you had better engage my attention fully or I will be very unhappy!  And that’s what I expect directors to do.