Resistance at the opera? [View all]

This afternoon I went to a live performance on HD broadcast by the Met of Beethoven's opera Fidelio. The story, which is actually a bit corny, is about a woman who disguises herself as a young man in order to get a job at the prison where her husband has been held as a political prisoner so she can try to free him. The villain is a despot who is holding the husband in a dungeon because he tried to tell the truth about the despot's evildoing. What was unusual was the introductory commentary by the general manager, Peter Gelb, before the performance started. I have been to a lot of these and I've never heard overtly political remarks before - he always talks about the music, the performers and the staging. But this time he made some pretty pointed remarks about how the arts are especially important now as they were in Beethoven's time following the French Revolution, because they are are an antidote to dictators and a bulwark against authoritarians -or words to that effect. And the whole audience (a packed house, this being the last performance of the spectacular soprano Lise Davidsen until next spring) - applauded, even though we were sitting in a movie theatre watching a broadcast. I've never seen that happen either. I bring this up because there seems to be a resistance vibe happening, even among a bunch of old people at the opera.