'La Traviata's' Double Play

Opera Company Will Screen Live Broadcast at Nationals Park

For those who mourned the demise of the Washington National Opera's opening-night simulcast on the Mall, the company has come through with a walk-off home run.

On Sept. 13 at 7 p.m., a live broadcast of "La Traviata" will be screened not to the Mall, but to Nationals Park. When the stadium opened in late March, much was made of the state-of-the-art Jumbotron; now, that screen will be used to air Violetta's death. If only they could use instant replay.

Beer and hot dogs will be served. Admission is free.

The turnaround comes courtesy of an unlikely conjunction of outside funders. Target and Rolex, perhaps the first time those two organizations have been linked in a single sentence, are underwriting the whole thing. This epitomizes the two sides of an art form that manages to be both elitist and aggressively populist at the same time.

"It says everything about opera," said Mark Weinstein, the opera's executive director. "On opening night, while all the tuxedos are over at the Kennedy Center doing this, we're also over at the ballpark doing that."

Populism doesn't come cheap. The price will be around $300,000: a little bit less than the cost of broadcasting "La Bohème" to the Mall last year, since the stadium already has the transmission equipment; but not as reduced as you might think, since the cost of high-definition equipment has increased as the technology continues to develop. Unlike last year, when the broadcast also went live to 32 schools around the nation, WNO's trustees are not putting up any of the money themselves. Weinstein is of the opinion that if the trustees have money to give the opera, they should be doing it anyway, rather than ponying up for special events.

The Lerner family, Weinstein said, has made the stadium available for the lowest possible cost. Even so, WNO is paying considerably more than the $200,000 that the San Francisco Opera reportedly spent to broadcast "Samson and Delilah" at AT&T Park last September. The cost of broadcasting opera is strangely variable: from $80,000 for a simple simulcast by the Houston Grand Opera to upwards of $1 million each for the Metropolitan Opera's international movie-theater franchises.

In the past few seasons, particularly since the Met's broadcast success, simulcasts have become practically de rigueur for opera companies touting them as a sure-fire form of outreach. But it is unclear what the companies expect to get for the money. Earlier this year, a survey of attendees at Met simulcasts was seen by many as demonstrating that people who went to a broadcast were also likely to go to a live opera performance. But since more than 90 percent of the audience surveyed said they were already opera fans, these results did not fully support the idea that simulcasts are actively cultivating a new audience.

"It's a gift to the city," Weinstein said. "I just want people to have a good time."

Of course, with a limited time frame -- the plans were finalized less than two weeks ago -- and no advertising budget (although WMATA is contributing publicity in the Metro and in buses), the company has to hope that people will come out to receive the gift.

In many ways a ballpark comes much closer to the holiday atmosphere of a 19th-century Italian opera house, where hawkers sold food in the aisles and people conducted active social lives in their boxes, than the hushed temples of art that today's opera houses have become.

At Nationals Park, the concession stands will be open, and people will have the option of spreading out blankets in the outfield or sitting in the stands. Many fans of the movie-theater broadcasts have noted how much they enjoy the informality and the popcorn, so beer and Cracker Jack seem an equally legitimate accompaniment. Furthermore, the WNO will have a chance to establish something new in this particular environment: a winning record.