You no longer have to choose between a paid live concert and a paid recording. Appropriately, at a time of rapidly rising travel costs, geography is no longer a barrier, either.

All webcasts at medici.tv are available for free, most of them being offered live with video-on-demand streaming available for an additional 60 days. Videos in the film library – an extensive selection of operas, ballets, documentaries, exclusive interviews, and historic performances – will be available for streaming and download by subscription (24-hour, one-month and six-month packages are available).

If you want to go beyond the 60-day limit for free video streaming, a modest subscription fee gets you into the corporate library of 200 music and opera titles (with more on the way). At current exchange rates, you’ll pay $8 to $14 per film, or $8 for a 24-hour subscription.

Seeing people perform in real time on the Internet is nothing new. But to have an established producer (Medici Arts is an umbrella for recognized transatlantic DVD labels EuroArts and Idéale Audience) on board brings us from the fringe into the mainstream of classical music and opera.

As if to give live-over-the-’Net performances the full seal of legitimacy, the Bayreuth Festival announced lately that its season-opening performance of Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger will be streamed live on July 27.