Most audience members mistakenly “listen with their eyes”. I’m a professional classical musician and while attending a Ravinia concert in the pavilion, even I had to remind myself to LISTEN as I drifted off into the seduction of the visual at the expense of the music.

If I’m prone to that kind of thing, I can’t imagine what that instructs a less educated listener to come away with from a concert!

But, as has already been noted in this comment section, follow the money. That attitude will lead to exactly the opposite kind of an impression of classical music and what it’s all about – the picture, not the music.

Ben

When my wife and I moved away from the Chicago area, we thought we’d miss Ravinia. But that was about the time Sunday concerts were being moved from 7 p.m. to 5 p.m., which was a disaster not only for the heat of the day (yes, I was there on that Mozart 5 p.m. Sunday when it was about 104 degrees), but also because that ‘family friendly’ time was more about noisy kids than experiencing great music. Now that Ravinia has gone visual, the real magic of that place seems to be really gone — so I doubt if we will miss it after all.

Out this way, we have a couple of summer venues that call themselves “Ravinia West” or something like that, with varied outdoor concerts in comfortable settings and with good sound systems. They may not really be anything like Ravinia as it once was, but they are fine for us now.

Mr. Yarosh has apparently spent long years in marketing opera companies, an endeavor that I, as a professional composer who has also worked in ‘development’, fully appreciate and admire. However the old saw about ‘if your tools is a hammer, every problem is a nail’ may apply here. Opera is meant to have a visual component, and we compose with that in mind. However – in orchestral concerts the visual is incidental – indeed the custom of dressing the orchestra uniformly has a lot to do with reducing visual distraction.

Now, if the visual aspect is to be artificially amplified, why not the audio? And once that is electronic, why not just play a video of the whole thing? I know it is Mr. Yarrow’s quite difficult job to ‘market’ performances, but it is important to be ever vigilant about mere gimmicks. I am sure it is very frustrating, but you will surely lose more people by installing a JumboTron© than you will gain.

By all means, put the screens up for those on the lawn who can’t see the stage – I would have loved this when I attended Tanglewood concerts a few years ago – but what on Earth is the point of giving a video image to people who can actually see the live event? I might not avoid a concert that had these video screens, but they certainly wouldn’t encourage me to attend.

Are those of us who oppose this old fuddy-duddies? Generally I’m totally for cutting-edge programming and novel presentation, but this one seems a horrible idea. But as a free market type, if Ravinia sells more tickets, who am I to object? Ravinia isn’t really the place to hear the great CSO at its best, anyway; if they did this at Orchestra Hall, it might be another matter.

The issue has nothing to do with what’s conservative and what isn’t. The issue is: what’s the product Ravinia is selling? Anyone who’s been in a sports bar with twenty televisions knows how different that product is vs. oh, say the Old Absinthe House, for example. In this case the screens are a distraction and they’re precisely intended to be a distraction.

But from what? If Ravinia is confident in the product it sells—and I suspect it is—then it should concentrate on forging an emotional connection between itself and its target audience. Video used in this manner is a highly suspect technique, not only because it significantly affects the product but also because it’s not exclusive.

One should not confuse a lack of innovation with opposition to an idea that has significant liabilities.

Turning everything into a TV show just because the technology is now cheap is a bad idea, and is motivated solely by marketing considerations. Marketers seem convinced that the younger generation is comprised of morons who cannot receive any kind of information without constant flashing and banging – seen any movie trailer lately without electronic thunder/explosion noises and visually irritating jump cuts every 10 seconds – even comedies and romance?)

As recent 4th of July events remind us the reverse is also true – blaring enforced music over fireworks reduces the entire sky to a mere TV set. Let’s stop this now, before it is too late!