Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Based partly on the impressions of 100 'opera virgins', this book investigates the nature of opera cinema, and the implications it poses for opera and culture more generally in the digital age. In 2006, the Metropolitan Opera in New York launched its Live From the Met in HD series with Julie Taymor's abridged, English-language production of Mozart's Die Zauberflèote . This novel hybrid of live performance and a night at the movies wowed audiences and sparked a minor boom in the streaming of live content to a network of cinemas. While ?event cinema? is now a major industry and a unique media experience with its own aesthetic, technical and experiential characteristics, opera cinema has developed beyond an alternative mode of engaging with opera into a new art form, which blends live performance with television, cinema and digital communication. But what are the implications for opera? Is simulcasting bringing new audiences into the fold? Is it changing stage opera? And what does it mean for the ontology of opera that it now has a bigger audience on the screen than the stage? In any case, opera cinema is significant to debates about the ontology of live performance, the boundaries of different media forms, the tension between so-called elite and popular culture, and democratisation of the arts."-- Provided by publisher.