Digital Music Looks Set to Replace Live Performances
Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago to Technology
Although it is from 2014, the article is still interesting to me.
Excerpt:
This August's production of Richard Wagner's four-opera Ring cycle in Hartford, Conn., has been postponed.
Rather than hiring pit musicians, producer Charles M. Goldstein had intended to accompany the singers with sampled instrument sounds, played by a computer. Not a CD, not a synthesizer; the computer triggers the playback of individual notes (“samples”) originally recorded from real instruments.
The reaction of professional musicians—and, of course, the musicians' union—was swift and furious. New York City's Local 802 president called it operatic karaoke. Hate mail poured in. In the end, the opera's music director, as well as two of the stars, withdrew from the production.
Excerpt:
This August's production of Richard Wagner's four-opera Ring cycle in Hartford, Conn., has been postponed.
Rather than hiring pit musicians, producer Charles M. Goldstein had intended to accompany the singers with sampled instrument sounds, played by a computer. Not a CD, not a synthesizer; the computer triggers the playback of individual notes (“samples”) originally recorded from real instruments.
The reaction of professional musicians—and, of course, the musicians' union—was swift and furious. New York City's Local 802 president called it operatic karaoke. Hate mail poured in. In the end, the opera's music director, as well as two of the stars, withdrew from the production.
