See the Metropolitan opera for the cost of a movie ticket!  Can't afford to pay for the Metropolitan Opera 's extravagant rendition of Richard Wagner 's Das Reingold ? Don't worry about burning through your checkbook to see the Met. The Met is coming to a movie theater near you with The Met: Live in HD film series. You don't have to be rolling in dough to enjoy the best that the Met has to offer. Shot in impressive HD and larger than life, The Met: Live in HD series opens up a new and exciting world of music and opera at regular movie ticket prices that anyone can afford. Why did the Metropolitan Opera create this series? Created by a grant from Metropolitan Opera sponsors The Neubauer Family Foundation, this Emmy Award-winning series is the Met's answer to the growing economic crises which has negatively affected the pocketbook of every major classical music institution. Growing a new generation of opera lovers is nearly impossible with music educatio...

Cover via Amazon Wagner made several contributions to classical composition, the most important of which were the leitmotif and his use of dissonance. In a nutshell, the leitmotif essentially gives each and every character in Wagner's opera their own specific musical motif, or theme music . Wagner's concept of the leitmotif has translated well into modern film composition. In fact, every film composer knows that he or she must devise a theme (or leitmotif) for the protagonist and antagonist of the film. This musical cue gives the audience an aural "heads up" that a specific character is about to enter the scene or plays an important part. For example, in the movie Jaws , John Williams assigns a particular motif based on minor seconds to the shark. Every time one hears this motif, the audience knows that the shark is out there, somewhere. Stephen Spielberg and John Williams (as well as Tim Burton and Danny Elfman ) have a very unique director/composer relati...