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POB "Sylphide" June 27 Cinema Broadcast


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Rumor has it that this will not be a new film of La Sylphide at all, but rather a screening of the existing film with Aurélie Dupont and Mathieu Ganio. The distributor's web site does not come right out and say this, but the conductor named is Ermanno Florio, who conducted the previously filmed performance, whereas this year's run is being conducted by Philippe Hui.

http://www.fraprod.fr/offre_cinema.php?id=10

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Too bad...since POB already has a pathetic number of broadcasts in the first place. I don't mind watching Aurelie and Mathieu for another million times (and hopefully in HD this time), but why must they do this when they could show another cast?

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The POB routinely films three productions each season for television broadcast. This year, in addition to Don Quixote and The Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler, which were also shown in cinemas, the company filmed the Gillot/Cunningham bill, which probably wasn't considered commercially viable for a cinema broadcast.

I understand why companies believe that movie audiences would rather see a full-evening narrative ballet than a triple bill of plotless works. The obvious problem is that their number is limited. There is a reluctance to repeat repertoire, probably because of an assumption that duplicate performances would be unlikely to sell on the DVD market. So thus far the POB has been slow to re-film anything already out on DVD. I did film a new Don Q this season, and it will film a new Sleeping Beauty next season, but they haven't yet reached the Royal Ballet's willingness to repeat popular repertoire even if there is almost no likelihood of subsequent DVD release. Next season the Royal Ballet will film its fourth Nutcracker, third Sleeping Beauty and third Giselle in less than a decade.

Mind you, POB DVDs traditionally came out on TDK and Opus Arte, and since Arthaus Musik swallowed up TDK and the Royal Opera House bought Opus Arte, there have been practically no new POB releases. The current backlog of unreleased telecasts goes back some five years. This is an extremely frustrating state of affairs.

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Do you know what the economics are for downloads vs. DVD's? I've long wondered why companies don't release already produced broadcasts for downloads. I would think that between POB, the Bolshoi, and the Mariinsky, there would be intense demand from a small community, and it wouldn't require physical distribution. I'm guessing that archival works would need to be digitized, and I don't know the economics of that, either.

Imagine if Soviet TV archives were available for download...

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Unfortunately I'm totally ignorant of the economics, but I don't understand why the broadcasts are not available as downloads. You Tube pirates are uploading the stuff anyway, and ballet companies won't make a cent off that. Why not try to control the process instead?

Still, if a broadcast is not shown in certain--or most--countries, and the performance is not made available in any recorded medium, I can understand why YouTube users on both ends of the data stream do what they do.

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Publishers seem to have come up with good solutions for the physical media storage problems. E.g., Amazon is selling the Balanchine Essays-Arabesque as a "copy-on-demand" DVD. At least some textbook publishers (e.g., Wadsworth) print some texts with limited readership only on-demand, when ordered by a bookstore. So the cost of making and storing physical DVDs doesn't seem to be the issue. That takes us back to problems getting releases from all the performers and other groups involved in the creation of the work. Royal Ballet seems to have figured out how to make it work, so why POB doesn't release more is a mystery.

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Bah... how much I'd love to see Ould-Braham or Froustey (still a sujet!) or Renavand in a Sylphide! Not that Dupont isn't wonderful, but she and Letestu are so over represented in the POB DVD ouvre. I really hope this upcoming generation gets their promotions and DVD recordings just as the previous one did...there are some real stars there.

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Well of course a lot of dancers could be filmed in the different ballets recorded depending your own preferences but it’s quite understandable that the stars of the company are more often chosen. That’s why they are Etoiles. Also, Dupont and Letestu were mainly filmed at a time recording meant DVD so you had to be sure of your choice, they have now the longest careers at the star level so they were more “exposed” than others but Gillot and Gilbert are also quite well served and at a time, Abbagnato and Osta too. Perhaps it will change a bit now with the streaming policy if it proves to be economically profitable and filming not considered as such a “big thing”…

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