Virtual Musicians, Real Fight

The tiny Opera Company of Brooklyn couldn't afford a full complement of musicians for this summer's production of "The Magic Flute," so it turned to a virtual orchestra. And ended up buying a lot of trouble.

The three-year-old OCB used solo pianists in its nine previous productions, which were designed to showcase young opera singers, the organization's mission. Artistic director and principal conductor Jay Meetze, who steers the organization, told the New York Times that for The Magic Flute, "I would prefer live music, but I wanted something more than a piano could produce." And that they could afford, given their tight budget and history of deficits.

Enter RealTime, a company with a new virtual orchestra technology. A RealTime partner, David Smith, offered the OCB a performance space at the NYC College of Technology, where Smith is a professor. He also donated RealTime's services for creating a virtual orchestra for the production.

RealTime first programmed the Magic Flute core onto their computer system (at a cost of approximately $50-80,000). During playback, 27 speakers placed around the stage (one for each bank of instruments -- violins, flutes, etc.) reproduce the sound while a "symphonist" at a computer keeps the music synched with the singers and cues any sound effects.

When word reached Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, union leaders called for e-mail and letter writing campaign to pressure the OCB into halting its production. Union opposition convinced Deborah Voight and Marilyn Horne to resign from opera's Board of Artistic Trustees, which Meetze admits he had failed to inform. (The OCB's Board of Directors had indeed approved using virtual musicians). Worried about blacklisting, some of the singers even dropped out of the production at last minute.

The battle over live and virtual music has been going on for a while. In New York, computerized symphonies had been used only to supplement large ensembles of live players. Broadway producers had planned to use virtual orchestras -- including RealTime's system -- during the recent musicians' strike, but actors and technicians joined the strike, making the question moot.

Elsewhere in NYC, training-oriented OperaWorks has been using a different virtual system in its productions for several years without any noticeable outcry, perhaps because their system is, according to the Time's Anthony Tommasini, "thin, tremulous and phony... beyond reviewing." RealTime has been field tested before, but OCB's Magic Flute would be RealTime's first stand-alone production.

The union looked at RealTime's generous involvement differently -- they felt it was actually a product demonstration and an exploitation of the OCB. According to the Times article, RealTime's Smith said, "This is just one little performance. I'm all for live music. But I think you have an intriguing new instrument here, and there's room for all of us." The article continues, "Smith denied that virtual orchestras would crowd out live musicians. He sees his system being used mostly where live orchestras wouldn't be an option, such as Off-Off-Broadway shows and touring productions."

But Local 802 President Bill Moriarty isn't convinced. RealTime's Broadway contract dispute "proved they're out to replace us," he said. "People looking only at the bottom line will look at [virtual orchestras] as a substitute."

At OCB -- the show went on. Although they received a threat of violence from one musician (who was denounced by Union president Moriarty for using an unacceptable form of protest), it also got offers of gratis services from others, who further offered contributions to start a Live Orchestra Fund.

Meetze told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "For the uneducated ear, a lot of people will be fooled... but there's nothing like a live orchestral sound... I hope there's a huge change in the way arts funding happens in this country, so we can afford more live orchestras."

Moriarty told the Times, "I hope it gets reviewed." It did, by Jeremy Eichler of the Times. He reported no protesters, and he enjoyed the cast and the production.

But how did it sound?

"…To these ears the answer is, better than expected yet still rather odd, and substantially inferior to a live orchestra."

"That said, Mr. Smith and his partners have achieved some impressive results. The most noteworthy aspect of the system is the way that the programmed elements of pitch and rhythm can be substantially manipulated in live performance to accommodate the demands of phrasing and rubato. The orchestra, in other words, appeared to follow Mr. Meetze's lead quite aptly, and most of the performance did not have a mechanized rigidity to it. That alone is quite an accomplishment... For long stretches the RealTime accompaniment was unobtrusive enough to let one focus on the singing and still enjoy a night at the opera."

Eichler noted some "disconcerting" physical aspects, such as the lack of rich timbres, natural resonance and blending, and subtlety in layering and note articulations (particularly a lack of subtlety and gradations in note endings).

What did he miss the most? "The tension and excitement that a live orchestra can bring. The introduction ... should crackle with electricity (the old-fashioned kind, that is). Conductors can easily elicit this taut dramatic playing from a responsive orchestra, but this feeling simply cannot be sampled and stored on a disc for later use."

Eichler concludes: "Will the virtual orchestra replace real players as part of this distant future? For now, anyway, a true symphonic simulacrum is safely in the realm of fantasy."

However, given the exponential rate of growth in computing power described by Moore's Law, this "fantasy" and reality may collide more forcefully, sooner than Eichler imagines.

Visit the Opera Company of Brooklyn at their site, and learn more about their summer productions

Find out more about the musicians' union, at the American Federation of Musicians site and at Local 802's site

Read about the dispute in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Read a New York Times review of the OCB production and their coverage of the dispute [fee required ]

Read a collection of articles about the rise of virtual orchestras