Hollywood Bowl is using big screens now. Not surprising … it’s Hollywood, after all! Some like it. Some don’t.
I sure wouldn’t want my face on the screen. It happened once, when I was playing for some rock group (maybe Rod Stewart? I can’t remember!) and I hated seeing myself up there. But anyhoo … here’s a snippet:
“Personally, I love them,” said Larry Tuttle, a composer who lives in Van Nuys. “My biggest complaints about the screens is that there are not more of them.”
John H. Welbourne, a lawyer who said he had been going to the bowl for 40 years, said he found the screens “in general distracting: I put my hands up almost like blinders on a horse so I can watch the orchestra.
“But that said, the screens can be very helpful for such things as watching a pianist’s hands,” he said. “For Paul Lewis last night, it was fantastic.”
In truth, even before these new screens came to life, there was a contingent of patrons who did not like video with their orchestra, big screen or not.
“My feeling is that watching an oboist puff their cheeks out and lick their reed is not that interesting,” said Jim Farber, a reviewer for San Francisco Classical Voice who is based here.
Oh … and side note: I will NEVER get used to seeing the plural “”their” when referring to the singular. Sorry, but we simply can’t stand that! 😉
