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POP/CULTURE: Variety on big screen

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By David Burke | Sunday, January 13, 2008 |

REMEMBER the old days — oh, maybe six or eight weeks ago — when all you could see at the local movie theater were movies?

But that’s changed at Showcase Cinemas 53 in Davenport, where the multiplex has opened up to live opera performances as well as concerts by singers Garth Brooks and Celine Dion.

Broadcasts of concerts and performances, live or nearly live, are becoming almost standard here. The cost is more than a movie ticket — $20-plus for the Metropolitan Opera — but if you want to see it and don’t want to drive to a major market such as Chicago, it’s worth it.

I haven’t been yet, but a co-worker took her family to a New Year’s Eve performance of “Hansel and Gretel” by the Met. There were about 50 or 60 people in the theater, she said, and the performance included behind-the-scenes features and unique camera angles — something you wouldn’t find sitting in the New York opera venue.

The operas are offered once a month, with one repeat (Verdi’s “Macbeth” gets an encore at 2 p.m. today). The schedule is online at fathomevents.com.

For those who didn’t get to the i wireless Center last fall for Miley Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana” concert tour stop, it will be shown in the theater in 3D for a week beginning Feb. 1.

Also onscreen at Showcase will be “Spirit of the Marathon,” a onetime look at runners in the Chicago Marathon, on Jan. 24.

Showcase isn’t the only area theater getting in on the act. The Putnam Museum’s IMAX will show a 3D concert by U2 beginning Jan. 23. “U23D” is being distributed by National Geographic in a marriage I’d like to have someone explain.

When I called Angela Hand, the company manager of Opera Quad-Cities, last month to ask her opinion about the Met at the movies, she was naturally skeptical.

“If you can’t go to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, this is probably the next best thing — if you want to see the Met,” she said.

Then again, her fully endorsing the broadcasts would be like me saying how you should all rush out and buy a copy of USA Today.

For someone looking for variety and not just a run-of-the-mill movie, seeing a live concert at the theater could open up numerous realms of possibilities.