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2014-15 Ballet in Cinema - North American screenings


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Canada's Cineplex unveiled its ballet screenings for 2014-15 today. They're showing everything the Royal Ballet and Bolshoi are offering, including the Bolshoi's repeats and both Swan Lakes. But despite earlier promises, still no Winter's Tale. wallbash.gif

September 24, 28 - Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty
October 16 - Manon (Royal Ballet)

October 26 - Legend of Love (Bolshoi)

November 20 - The Pharaoh's Daughter (Bolshoi, repeat)

December 7 - La Bayadère (Bolshoi, repeat)

December 17, 20 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Royal Ballet)

December 21 - The Nutcracker (Bolshoi)

January 25 - Swan Lake (Bolshoi)

February 22, 25 - Moulin Rouge (Royal Winnipeg Ballet, repeat)

March 8 - Romeo & Juliet (Bolshoi, repeat)

March 18 - Swan Lake (Royal Ballet)

April 19 - Ivan the Terrible (Bolshoi)

May 6 - La Fille mal gardée (Royal Ballet)

Adult tickets are $19.95, which I think is less than what they cost last season, but seniors don't get much of a discount at $18.95, and savings from "bundling" and "group" tickets are insignificant: these tickets are $17.95 per show. However, children still enjoy substantially cheaper tickets at $12.85, which is a much larger discount than what is offered to them for screenings by the Met or the National Theatre. Sadly, based on my observations at least, ballet schools don't seem to take advantage of it.

http://www.cineplex.com/Events/DanceSeries

Edited: as kbarber has informed us on another thread, the Royal Ballet will not be broadcast by Cineplex this season. Boo!

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/39273-all-royal-ballet-broadcasts-in-canada-cancelled-by-cineplex/

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I saw the Bourne Sleeping Beauty on PBS earlier this year and it is big fun -- I would love to see it on a large screen where you could really discern more detail.

Very frustrating about Winter's Tale -- do you suppose it has anything to do with the NBC? I could understand that they'd like first go for North America...

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Very frustrating about Winter's Tale -- do you suppose it has anything to do with the NBC? I could understand that they'd like first go for North America...

Royal lists this as a co-production with National Ballet of Canada, so that probably explains why it won't be seen in North America in cinema. It's not being done by Royal in their 2014-15 season. Is it listed for NBC next year? I would guess that with all the massive sets and costumes, it's a big deal to move them across the Atlantic. And both companies have a big incentive to recoup their investments, I suppose, by encouraging people to get to a theater to see it in performance.

http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/the-winters-tale-by-christopher-wheeldon

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Very frustrating about Winter's Tale -- do you suppose it has anything to do with the NBC? I could understand that they'd like first go for North America...

That has to be it. Alice has screened in Canada before, but that was already after the National Ballet's first run. No disrespect to the dancers of the NBoC, but I would much rather see the original cast for its dramatic skills. Of course if the National Ballet eventually shows us Svetlana Lunkina as Hermione, I'll probably feel differently.

But it's not as though the NBoC is ever likely to tour the ballet extensively.

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Adult tickets are $19.95, which I think is less than what they cost last season

That's considerably less than my local cinema (the Brixton Ritzy, a member of the Picturehouse chain) is charging. They have a set fee of £21 for non-members to see each of the above itemised Bolshoi programmes and that comes to $38.64 Canadian per outing - a considerable difference. No wonder they call it 'rip-off Britain'. At the Canadian rate shown above, it would - in today's terms - come to £10.84 per Bolshoi screening - including the Bolshoi repeats which are sometimes cheaper to buy in the DVD format than to watch as a one-off on the big screen. Our Canadian neighbours pay - in effect - less than half the British price for these cinematic transmissions - (even the Royal's are MORE EXPENSIVE to watch in the UK) - without any concession taken into consideration (which, I promise, doesn't make up for the difference by any stretch of the imagination.) .

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I'm sure Canadian presenters know that if they were to charge, say, $35 for a screening, no one would come. I can only comment on what I've seen, and my experience is based on watching these screenings at multiple venues in a single city. The sad fact is that in these parts the Bolshoi, the ROH, and also the National Theatre and occasional screening from the Royal Shakespeare Company, are equally poorly attended. The Metropolitan Opera does draw packed crowds, but I suspect that if prices were raised from an average of about $26 to $30, its audience would drop off as well.

If tickets for 3D D-Box movies cost more than tickets to see the Royal Ballet, I guess it's because people are willing to pay more to watch action movies while being bumped around on moving seats. And I guess the cinemas can charge twice as much for the Met in HD as they do for ordinary 2D movies because the market can sustain it. But evidently there aren't enough lovers of ballet and serious drama in Canada to make these screenings super-duper profitable. And it's been noted here more than once that advertising for the ballet screenings is non-existent.

I certainly haven't seen anyone reminding audiences about how much more it would cost to fly to London, book a hotel room and buy an orchestra seat at the ROH to see these performances in person, but I wouldn't venture to guess how successful such an argument would be. (Relatively few of us are silly enough to engage in such folly. smile.png)

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I'm sure many have noticed that both Royal Ballet and National Ballet of Canada have posted their schedules for 2014-15. Winter's Tale is nowhere to be found on either, which is a puzzle. When they co-sponsored Alice, did NBC wait a year before presenting it themselves? Seems odd to wait so long to show it again, unless Wheeldon wants to rework parts of it, perhaps?

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I believe the plan was always to present the ballet in Toronto during the 2015-16 season. Apparently the premiere is scheduled for November 2015.

https://www.facebook.com/nationalballet/photos/pb.13986327142.-2207520000.1405195099./10151937188137143/?type=3&theater

In that case, it probably won't re-appear in London until the spring of 2016 at the earliest.

Perhaps we'll get a cinema broadcast from that set of performances.

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Maybe the absence of Winter's Tale from both the Royal and NBOC's schedule for next season is related to Wheeldon's other activities. He will be very busy creating an American in Paris this autumn (in Paris). It then goes to New York sometime in the new year, I think. Perhaps working on or setting Winter's Tale in the same season was too much to contemplate.

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Maybe the absence of Winter's Tale from both the Royal and NBOC's schedule for next season is related to Wheeldon's other activities. He will be very busy creating an American in Paris this autumn (in Paris). It then goes to New York sometime in the new year, I think. Perhaps working on or setting Winter's Tale in the same season was too much to contemplate.

Oh, right -- I think you may have put your finger on it.

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In the U.S. Fathom Events will be broadcasting both the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi, without Ivan the Terrible, but with last season's Winter's Tale. For the most part these will be same-day, time-delayed broadcasts, midday screenings for the Bolshoi and screenings at 7:00 p.m. local time for the RB.

October 16 - Manon (Royal Ballet)

October 26 - Legend of Love (Bolshoi)

December 16 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Royal Ballet)

December 21 - The Nutcracker (Bolshoi)

January 25 - Swan Lake (Bolshoi)

February 17 - The Winter's Tale (Royal Ballet, repeat)

March 8 - Romeo & Juliet (Bolshoi, repeat)

March 19 - Swan Lake (Royal Ballet)

May 5 - La Fille mal gardée (Royal Ballet)

http://www.fathomevents.com/event/the-royal-ballet-season-2014-15

http://www.fathomevents.com/event/bolshoi-ballet-2014-15-season

Ticket prices vary by location, but generally seem to fall in the $15-18 range.

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There are 4 "cineplexes" within 20 miles of my house. Two showed Met b'casts, and two showed "Ballet in Cinema" and "Opera in Cinema" (i.e. La Scala, ROH etc.) broadcasts. Then those two theaters stopped, and switched to Met broadcasts only. So now I have to travel a minimum of 3 hrs from home if I want to see any ballets in a movie theater. This may explain why I only saw ONE ballet last year at a cinema - the YAGP 'live broadcast' (NOT First Position film) and only because AC was supposed to be in it - he was, briefly. I also only went to ONE ballet in NYC this past season (ABT). No money to add an extra $100-500 to my ticket price for travel expenses whether its on a big screen, or stage. And yes, advertising is beyond dismal. We get one line in the movie listings THE DAY OF (and often only a few hrs before) the show.

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Which reminds me, cinema locations can be found in the "more info" section for each screening. There are quite a few theaters, I'm guessing about 350 in total, with approximately 60 in California and about 40 in Texas. But the listings are not always identical for each program. For example, at the moment Manon is scheduled to be screened in Kenosha, WI, but Legend of Love is not.

e.g., http://www.fathomevents.com/event/roh1415-manon/more-info/theater-locations

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I just saw that there are more venues other than just Fathom that are screening the Bolshoi broadcasts. The new website for the Bolshoi broadcasts is http://www.bolshoiballetincinema.com/ and it seems like it is the same distributor as The Met! It is great to see that many more theaters all over the US will be screening Bolshoi moving forward.

Wow. This definitely helps. It moved it out of the small, old theater that puts the culture offerings in a tiny theater with a broken speaker system and a loud air vent. These other theaters are the ones where The Met and/or NT Live broadcasts are shown. Much better.

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I just saw that there are more venues other than just Fathom that are screening the Bolshoi broadcasts. The new website for the Bolshoi broadcasts is http://www.bolshoiballetincinema.com/ and it seems like it is the same distributor as The Met! It is great to see that many more theaters all over the US will be screening Bolshoi moving forward.

Wow. This definitely helps. It moved it out of the small, old theater that puts the culture offerings in a tiny theater with a broken speaker system and a loud air vent. These other theaters are the ones where The Met and/or NT Live broadcasts are shown. Much better.

Yes, and according to the website there will be 4 theaters in Manhattan as opposed to just 1 venue, and all will be shown live. I hope to see more of Smirnova this cinema season - official season trailer shows her and Hallberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd0BV9pR_wM

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Bad news for those of us who were watching these ballet broadcasts at Digiplex theaters. They've been bought by Carmike Cinemas. While I see they have some arts offerings, they might not have the same ones with as many dates as Digiplex did. I'm holding out hope because the banner for their "events" selections is all ballet :)

http://www.carmike.com/Events

On the other hand, good news for Hartford viewers is that Cinestuio is showing the Bolshoi's Legend of Love on October 26.

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In Canada the Royal Ballet has found a new home with Landmark Cinemas, after its initial arrangement with Cineplex fell through.

Manon
Saturday, December 6 at 11 am (10 am in British Columbia)
Monday, December 15 January 26 at 6:30 pm

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Saturday, January 24 at 11 am (10 am in BC)
Monday, February 2 at 6:30 pm

Swan Lake
Saturday, April 18 at 11 am (10 am in BC)
Monday, April 27 at 6:30 pm

La Fille mal gardée
Saturday, June 6 at 11 am (10 am in BC)
Monday, June 15 at 6:30 pm

Participating Landmark locations:
YT - Whitehorse (Qwanlin)

BC - Campbell River, Courtenay, Cranbrook, Kamloops, Kelowna (Paramount), Nanaimo, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Penticton, Surrey, Victoria
AB - Calgary (Country Hills), Calgary (Shawnessy), Edmonton (City Centre), Spruce Grove
MB - Winnipeg (Grant Park)
ON - Hamilton, Kanata, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Orleans, St. Catharines, Waterloo, Whitby

Ticket prices: $16.99 for adults, $14.99 for seniors and $11.99 for children

http://www.landmarkcinemas.com/en.aspx

The Royal Ballet can also be seen at the Royal Theatre in Trail, BC, on Sunday mornings, keeping them on more or less the same sort of schedule as the Bolshoi.
Manon - December 7 at 9:55 am
Alice - February 8 at 9:55 am
Swan Lake - April 26 at 9:55 am
Fille - June 7 at 11 am

http://www.royaltheatretrail.com/dance

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The whole thing is really erratic, and the local theaters find themselves in an awkward situation -- needing to promote a singular event when they rarely do that kind of advertising for the rest of their programming.

Out of curiosity, has anyone seen these ballet screenings advertised in the playbills of ballet companies? I went to the opera and saw a full-page ad for the Met Live in HD in the program. I went to see a play and found a full-page ad for National Theatre Live in the program. But the same movie chain hadn't placed an ad for its dance series in the ballet company's program. I'm not necessarily saying the ads are effective; around here the Met in HD is well attended, and NTL is not. But when it comes to promoting ballet screenings, the movie theaters don't even seem to try.

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Is this because the National Theatre broadcasts often include actors familiar from television and film? In my experience their presence usually doesn't do much for ticket sales, but the operating assumption may be that readers will respond to "live in HD" ads the way they respond to movie ads with the same actors, i.e., in very large numbers. By that reasoning ballet doesn't stand a chance.

I also can't help wondering whether the movie chains have encountered resistance from ballet companies, which fear the competition. Personally, I suspect arguments about "cannibalization" are fallacious. I looked through my calendars going back to the 2010-11 season, when direct-to-cinema ballet began in earnest, and in every season since then my live ballet, opera and theater-going has exceeded the number of performances I saw at the multiplex. Of course, I can't say definitely whether that would still be the case if I were actually living in London and faced with the choice of seeing the same performance in person or on a movie screen, but I find the experiences are substantially different and don't cancel out each other.

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