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Vienna Opera opened its archive for free streaming (staatsoperlive.com)
689 points by tosh on March 15, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 73 comments



‘All of Bach’ is the Netherlands Bach Society project to record the entire catalogue of Bach works. Check them out if you’re in the mood for classical music.

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/allofbach


Great project. My only nitpick is that their content is not permissively licenced. This is fine for the short-term, because the Bach Society has to earn its keep somehow, but it would be nice if there was some kind of licensing planned for the many decades between short and mid-term monetization and the eventual expiry of copyright on these recordings.


The Berlin Philharmonic is doing the same: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/home


I'm from berlin and didn't know about this, thanks!

I just saw https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/204 and it sounds and even looks amazing. Truly a treasure trove.


I found about this yesterday. It is truly amazing. You get a Gutschein(groupon code?) for a month.

If you like Beethoven, you should check this out : https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/de/concert/52428

Truly amazing especially the 2nd part(Molto vivace).


Thanks for the link. If I hear Beethoven or Schubert I know that I am not alone with those deep feelings in this tragic times. Music is a miracle.


[EDITED]

The Met is doing free (beginning in the evening US East Coast) streams this week and available for about the next day: https://operawire.com/metropolitan-opera-to-offer-up-nightly...


maybe one good thing that comes out of this is that more people become conscious of how important it is to have access to high quality cultural goods.

With the virus circulating around now everyone is affected, but the overwhelming majority of people never has physical access to this sort of content. Some countries have well financed public broadcasters, but it would probably be worth expanding this stuff across national borders.


The Royal Opera House YouTube channel also has extraordinary content with incredible production values https://www.youtube.com/user/RoyalOperaHouse


For anyone out there needing some way to respond - I find that music, and especially classical music performed live, speaks something incredibly profound to the soul. It finds strength inside of you that is buried deep. Yo-yo Ma released a short song today, take a listen if you have time: https://youtu.be/rrBOkHfvNSY


The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will be streaming their performances live on YouTube, starting from tonight's (in about 3 hours): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCBYvd5LKa4


This is cool! Tickets to live shows are usually pretty pricey, and these are some of the best performances in the world.


Standing tickets (no seats) are still just 10€. (80 min before begin at the Stehplatzkasse in Operngasse).


I see no "free" on that page. The only thing, which is free, is the first month. Then it costs EUR 16.90/month.


It's funny, the page, as it's loading, shows "free trial" button, and when it finishes loading, the button text changes to "free".


You just have to create an account. They still push you to the subscription page but the content doesn’t require it.


doesn't work for me. It says pay 16€ or 5€ :-(


I basically spend my entire programming life on Israeli Kan classical radio station 24/7 of very versatile classical music: https://www.kan.org.il/radio/player.aspx?stationId=7


they used to run a lot of modern music, I'd wish they didn't do that.


Radio Swiss Classic plays older compositions; I dislike modern music as well and use their stream.


Bavarian State Opera is offering some streams as well:

https://www.staatsoper.de/tv.html?no_cache=1#c16663


Great stuff. We were had tickets for Thursday night but instead we are on the other side of the planet in 'strayla.


In a similar vein, the Youtube channel for the DR Koncerthuset has about 20 playlists with recordings of several symphony concerts: https://www.youtube.com/user/Koncerthuset/playlists


I only see the ‘Buy’ option. How do you get the free access?


You have to click on 'free', go to https://www.culturall.com/ticket/ists/login.mc , register an account (email/password), and then it plays in-browser. https://www.culturall.com/ticket/ists/performance_schedule.m... lists at least 11 things to stream with '0,00 €', which I assume is how they're doing 'free'.


Hm, they should have made it without registration.


Yeah, and they should wash my dishes as well. I mean is it really free if I still have to do domestic chores afterwards?


If it's free art, why the registration? I see no point. I didn't bother making an account.


I nominate you to /r/ChoosingBeggars


Might be region locked? I get a free option in the US (NY-State)


Interestingly, the button changed from “Start trial” to “Free” after a couple of seconds for me.


I think it's an A/B test of trial vs free.

Try clearing cookies and giving it another go...


Seems to be free only on the web not in the Android app


Is there a website or channel or radio , which plays these classsics from various websites randomly ? like a FM radio.


I listen to a stream of a Los Angeles station called KUSC all the time. It’s a fantastic station (unless they’re doing a pledge drive, but don’t worry, they just did one) and it’s comforting that it’s the same hosts no matter where I travel.

Asking to play it works across all major devices and platforms.


I used to listen to KUSC until I got annoyed with the commercials and interruptions, of which there are quite a few. Now I recommend Radio Swiss Classic (http://www.radioswissclassic.ch/), which is better in this respect; the music may be of slightly less variety and with less scommentary.



KUSC listener here too. I agree it's great station, plus it's available on my quite old Squeezebox devices. It's owned and operated by the University of Southern California


Not exactly what you mean but operacast lists opera streaming broadcasts from around the world:

operacast.com

It's pretty old-school but I've found the schedule pretty up-to-date. I've also noticed that some of the programs aren't opera per se but "opera adjacent", like choral music or instrumental music by opera composers. My impression is that there are some programs that regularly stream operas but at any given week might offer something else.

My sense is that there's a lot of opportunity for a well-done classical streaming service. A lot of the traditional channels don't quite work because their catalogue isn't deep enough or their metadata structures are weird and unhelpful (for example, it's impossible to sort by composer alone).


Opera cast is generally pretty great, but it is pretty manual and they do miss a lot of things going on. There are now lots of classical streaming only services like Primephonic, Idagio, and others that take care of the metadata problem.


If you can access UK radio via the internet we have BBC Radio 3 and ClassicFM.


I only get the "Buy" option for everything


Doesn't seem to be free on the Apple TV app.


Oh I would be willing to pay to put this on Sonos.

Amazing...


where is it I went to their website in the link but I don't see where the free streaming is...


ok i like opera


So cool!


Can we stop advertising time-limited singup-requiring trials as "opened for free" ? Because for that matter - so did pornhub.


So, I saw the same thing you did. But, once I disabled some of my blockers and such on the site, on refresh it immediately went from "Free Trial" to just "Free". On the Vienna Opera site, not Pornhub... just to be clear ;-)

I'm now watching Das Rheingold without having had to provide payment details or the like, though I did have to create a user account (just username/password). Mind you, some mightn't find that as... err.... exciting as some other options... but for me it will do just fine for now.


You know that how?


Because I saw them advertising that, on their site, which I browsed to, for the purpose of viewing pornography.


Some might consider J.S. Bach to be "Baroque" not "Classical."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach


We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22586671.


Even that link draws a distinction between the 'classical period' (what you linked to) and 'classical music' (a much broader range and the terminology parent commenter used)


Noting that the comment you are replying to has changed the link from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_period_(music), presumably because that page points out that "Classical music" includes music from the Baroque period as well as the Classical period.


Listen, if you want to call all Western Art music "classical" go right ahead. In fact, pop stuff like "Andrea Bocelli" and "The Piano Guys" gets lumped into "classical" too.


Sounds like a pointless hill to die on IMO, even if it is technically accurate. With language there's always plenty of context which humans are smart enough to make distinctions from.

I've never understood why people selectively allow broad context for most things, except for some pet subjects. The label programmers vs developers vs engineers is a good example, when the majority of people know what you're referring to. Making the distinction insignificant far more often than not.

Edit: Do you think Google really has 1700 "engineers" working on the coronavirus testing website? (probably not, that likely includes UX, designers, management, etc). Does it matter to the expected audience? (no).


It's difficult to imagine how any team of 1,700 could work on a new website whose spec isn't even fleshed out.

I read the project got 1,700 volunteer applications, not actual commitments.


Knowingly and insistently using a different jargon/vernacular from a person with whom you want to communicate isn't going to get you far.


Especially considering people are already not so keen on classical music


As a big fan of Medieval and Renaissance music, it's always disappointing to me that almost all music sources don't split my sub-sub genre out from Classical. It's not all the same.


True music fans (I'm not a dj or musician) have this subgenre issue. I'm an avid electronic music fan from the early days of space music to current drum funk, drum and bass. Watching the genres evolve over time and discussing the divergence a favorite pass time of mine. Have you checked out Musicbrainz? The catalog that community is building is, from what I've seen so far, the most robust publicly available database. The 3 largest known databases are still privately owned and not available publicly


It's fine that _you_ won't stand for it, but for the general population Bach _is_ considered classical and your comment reads as if you're denying that.


In popular usage, the term classical refers to all european music written before about 1900 or so, and music written since that fits an older style


Strictly speaking not all music written before 1900. There was no rock or pop music of course, but I wouldn't lump folk music (the kind sung in taverns and to goats by lonely goatherds¹) under classical music. The line gets blurred at some point of course, but that has always been the case (Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is four parts rock and one part opera, and the Radetzky-Marsch has all the makings of a hit pop record — well, back in those days at least).

1: My apologies if that song got stuck in your head now. Give the Laibach cover a listen if you want it out of there.


-Your comment made me chuckle as I was in fact listening to that fine act of Slovenian cultural imperialism as I read it - Opus Dei, by the way.

Slightly less off-topic, I have been listening to lots of classical music over the years - in no small part because of a music teacher in secondary school who didn't just put on a record to let us know what, say, Beethoven, Händel or Shostakovich sounded like, but rather brimmed with (genuine) enthusiasm and a heartfelt joy of being able to share this great music with us.

The enthusiasm was contagious.


That link in the very first sentence links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music which includes the Baroque era and explicitly mentions Bach: Important composers of this era include Johann Sebastian Bach...


So I'm getting down votes because the post I'm replying to changed the link from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_period_(music)

On that page the second sentence is "For an article about Western art music from the middle ages to the contemporary era, see Classical music", and Classical Music links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music


It's not free. They force you to register.

This is free advertisement at HN. Not HN.


You have to create an account, but you don't need to sign up for a subscription, so yes, it's free.


The exchange of one service for the other has a somewhat different legal status & definition at many parts of the world. However, it's not "free" anywhere. Neither "free" as in "Free beer" or "Free" as in freedom.


Everyone's idea of free is different. Even if they didn't force you to register, someone would complain that it's not free unless they license it as Creative Commons CC0 and pay to host high speed direct download links for all the content in ultra-high bitrate open codecs.


That was the Free Music Archive which was started under the auspices of the storied freeform radio station WFMU. Costs for hosting and bandwidth eventually killed it, but it's been limping along under KitSplit, and now Tribe of Noise.




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