In the control room, Matthew Principe directs the program feed of Boston Baroque’s production of "Iphigénie en Tauride." Photo by Robin Lubbock/WBUR.
“Boston Baroque and Guerilla Opera jumped into the digital sphere experimenting with live streams, archival performances and on-demand digital offerings” during the height of the pandemic, writes Lauren Williams in Thursday’s (5/4) WBUR (Boston). “But now, a week out from the end of the COVID-19 state of emergency on May 11, questions remain about whether or not musical performance organizations will continue to embrace the digital world. For Boston Baroque, that answer is clear…. ‘You could think that pure period performance must mean that we are only looking at the past, but that is not the case,’ explained Emily Weddle, Boston Baroque’s director of marketing…. Long ago, they began prioritizing video and audio recordings for the archive…. The pandemic was a shock to the system for all of the arts, but it also created an opportunity for the acceleration of digital performance. Boston Baroque took action to secure licensing rights for past performances and started distributing content on YouTube and Amazon Prime. But first, they offered full-length concerts for free on their website before transitioning viewers to a paid rental. What they found was something remarkable: widespread interest from audiences all over the state—and country.” The article also reports on Guerilla Opera’s focus on digital content.
