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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 24 April 2008

Pick of the Indies

FANCY a night out at New York’s famed Metropolitan Opera House, but would rather take the Tube than fork out for a transatlantic airfare?
Well, this Saturday you can hop on the Northern Line and head up to East Finchley. The Phoenix cinema, the UK’s longest-running independent cinema, is screening a live performance of Donizetti’s opera La Fille du Regiment (Daughter of the Regiment) via satellite from the Big Apple.
Produced in conjunction with the Royal Opera House and Vienna’s Wiener Staatsoper, the opera, written in 1840, tells the story of a baby found on a battlefield by a group of solders. She is adopted by them, but as she grows up she faces tough choices of loyalty between her lover, the unit and her real family.
Starring Natalie Dessay and tenor Juan Diego Florez, the production was given strong reviews for its recent run at Covent Garden, and was one of Luciano Pavarotti’s earliest successes.
There are places where the tenor has to reach high Cs – an arduous task – and when the late singer achieved this with a dash of panache in his Metropolitan debut. while in his 20s, his fame was cemented.
Being at the Phoenix is almost as good as being at the live show, according to critics.
Observer newspaper opera buff Peter Conrad described the experience as being “like having not just the best seat at the Met but all the best seats simultaneously”.
The opera house uses 13 high-definition cameras dotted about the stage. The footage is then streamed into an editing suite before being sent skyward to a satellite – from there it comes directly back down to Earth to East Finchley, where it will be beamed through the projector at the independent cinema.
DAN CARRIER

• Phoenix box office 020 8444 6789 www.phoenixcinema.co.uk. Tickets £25

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