Even amid the slurps of giant Pepsis and the rattling tubs of buttered popcorn, Mimi’s lyrical death scene was, as ever, to die for. Angela Gheorghiu sang Mimi’s final breaths to a fare-thee-well of heartbreak as another “La Boheme - live in HD telecast from the Metropolitan Opera - drew an ecstasy of bravos and applause from aficionados gathered in the darkness of the College Point Multiplex Cinema.
A group catharsis took place in Queens County on the fringe of New York City, as car-crash movies played on the other side of the walls. Shoppers poured into the neighboring Toys “R Us - children beaming like Rodolfo when he’s smitten in Act I.
The Met’s live opera simulcasts to 600 theaters worldwide prove you don’t have to be there in person to savor the trill of Musetta in the flesh.
Fine cinematic technique - close-ups of radiant lovers; tracking shots amid the dawn’s snowfall; backstage glimpses of scenery changes and the cast’s sweaty exuberance - arguably makes the experience richer than through opera glasses atop the Met’s Family Circle.
The popcorn and soda were just what I needed to recall my earliest whiff of opera as a boyhood customer in a Brooklyn barber shop; the barber snipping and singing in tune with the Met’s live radio broadcast. The joie de vivre of the Cafe Momus crowd in Act II was an easy match for the motley cineplex lobby, even if there was no wine to be had at the snack counter.
The trip back from whispery Parisian rooftops to the hard-edged Manhattan skyline was made in humming gratitude. As Rodolfo sang of Mimi, a day at the transported opera was, for one of the 136,410 global attendees: O dolce viso. What a sweet vision.

FRANCIS X. CLINES