Romeo and Juliet (ROH 2015) in Cinemas

[naomikage]

As for Japan a Japanese distributor announced that Romeo and Juliet, Vicera/Afternoon of a Faun/Tchaikovsky PDD/Carmen bill, and Nutcracker will be shown in cinemas beginning from November. No announcement of other works to be shown yet.

http://roh2015jp.wix.com/cinemaseason

[volcanohunter]

Australian dates have also just been announced. Romeo and Juliet will be screened on October 30, 31, November 1 & 4. (Well, I should hope so, what with two Australians in leading roles!)

http://www.palaceoperaandballet.com.au/production/romeo-and-juliet

Lucky Australians get the whole shebang: the Royal Ballet and Opera, the Paris Opera and Ballet, and the Italian houses.

[kirovboy]

There are 12 productions altogether as a part of their season.

Romeo & Juliet - Royal Ballet - MacMillan - 9/22 performance

Le Nozze de Figaro - Royal Opera - Mozart - 10/5 performance

Viscera/Afternoon of a Faun/Tchai pas/Carmen - Royal Ballet - Scarlett/Robbins/Balanchine/Acosta - 11/12 performance

Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci - Royal Opera - Mascagni/Leoncavallo - 12/10 performance

The Nutcracker - Royal Ballet - Wright - 12/16 performance

Rhapsody/Two Pigeons - Royal Ballet - Ashton/Ashton - 1/26 performance

La Traviata - Royal Opera - Verdi - 2/4 performance

Boris Godunov - Royal Opera - Musorgsky - 3/21 performance

Giselle - Royal Ballet - Petipa - 4/6 performance

Lucia de Lammermoor - Royal Opera - Donizetti - 4/25 performance

Frankenstein - Royal Ballet - Scarlett - 5/18 performance

Werther - Royal Opera - Massenet - 6/27 performance

[volcanohunter]

If you prefer a paper program, PDF versions of the synopsis and cast list are now available in a number of languages.

http://www.roh.org.uk/showings/romeo-and-juliet-live-2015

[volcanohunter]

Interestingly, it appears that in Canada the ballet will be screened by both Cineplex and the rival Landmark Cinemas chain on September 27.

On the one hand, viewers can choose which cinema is most convenient for them, depending on whether or not there is paid parking at a given location, and deciding whether they'd rather pay $20 at Cineplex or $17 at Landmark (bearing in mind that Cineplex has a loyalty points program and Landmark does not). But in some cases I think it's programming overkill. For example, four simultaneous screenings in Calgary (pop. 1.1 million) strikes me as excessive, especially since the hometown Alberta Ballet has never shown much inclination to promote ballet screenings, as far as I can tell. I hope it works out.

[volcanohunter]

Behind-the scenes films

[volcanohunter]

And a couple more.

[California]

I saw the Tuesday night performance at the Royal Opera House. This would not have been my first-choice of ballets to see, especially after seeing four performances with ABT last spring (two of those with cancelled performances by Osipova and Vishneva), but I'm in the UK for a conference, so I take what I can get.

I'm not even sure where all the cameras were for the transmission, they were so discrete. I loved this pair of principals, although the professional critical response seems to be mixed. I was not impressed with McCrae in the ill-fated Giselle with Osipova last spring at ABT - he seemed pale and understated. But he seemed to have great chemistry with Lamb and they were a good match in size, demeanor, etc. His boyish charm and smallish size work well in this ballet.

I haven't seen any notice of this, but during the first interval, two large banners were unfurled from the top tier right by the stage. BP had been introduced by the company director before the performance as sponsor of the big-screen viewings all over the UK. The banners referred to BP as "corporate criminals" and urged the Royal Ballet to stop accepting corporate funds from them. I was surprised it took so long for ushers to get the banners and the people who unfurled them out of the theater. The audience seemed mostly unfazed. Perhaps they are used to this. It reminded me of the ethical challenge of enjoying ballet in NYC even though David Koch provides so much money. Maybe we've all just accepted the necessity of getting money where ever you can find it.

A small detail: At the end, at ABT, the first curtain "call" shows the two dead lovers still sprawled on the floor. Royal skips that bit of extra-drama. I was impressed that a survey about my responses to the ballet was waiting in my e-mail inbox right after the performance. Do ABT or NYCB ever do that? Seems smart!

[volcanohunter]

I was looking over the Canadian listings for Sunday, September 27, and it seems that despite the master lists of participating theaters, not every cinema will be showing every production. In particular the rival Cineplex and Landmark movie chains appear to have reached some sort of arrangement to prevent too much audience-splitting for Romeo and Juliet, so double check listings to make sure that the ballet is actually playing at a given multiplex.

Start times are not uniform, although most screenings will begin at 12:55 pm. West of Ontario, Landmark Cinemas will be going with earlier start times (meaning, for example, that screenings in Greater Vancouver will be starting three hours apart depending on the theater). Start times in Atlantic Canada are traditionally later than in the rest of the country. No promises that this list is entirely correct.

AB: Calgary [Lx2], Edmonton [C, L], Lethbridge [C]

BC: Campbell River [L], Coquitlam [C], Courtenay [L], Kamloops [L], Langley [C], Nanaimo [L], New Westminster [L], North Vancouver [L], Penticton [L], Richmond [C], Vancouver [C]

MB: Winnipeg [C, L]

NB: Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John (all Cineplex)

NL: St. John's [C]

NS: Dartmouth, Halifax, Sydney (all Cineplex)

ON: Ancaster [C], Barrie [C], Belleville [C], Burlington [C], Collingwood [C], East Gwillimbury [C], Etobicoke [C], Gloucester [C], Guelph [C], Kanata [L], Kingston [C], Kitchener [L], London [C], Niagara Falls [C], Oakville [C], Orleans [L], Oshawa [C], Ottawa [C], Peterborough [C], Sarnia [C], Scarborough [C], St. Catharines [L], St. Thomas [C], Sudbury [C], Thunder Bay [C], Toronto [Cx3], Vaughan [C], Whitby [L], Windsor [C]

PE: Charlottetown [C]

QC: Brossard, Cote Saint-Luc, Kirkland, Laval, Montreal (2), Sherbrooke, Ste-Foy (all Cineplex)

SK: Regina, Saskatoon (all Cineplex)

http://www.cineplex.com/Events/DanceSeries (click on "showtimes" link)

http://www.landmarkcinemas.com/en.aspx (click on the icon of the Romeo and Juliet poster)

Admission prices

Cineplex: $20 / $19 / $13 - plus SCENE loyalty points

Landmark: $17 / $15 / $12

[kbarber]

Thanks for this very exhaustive list, volcanohunter.

Could they make it any harder for people to find out whether a given ballet is being shown in their neighbourhood or not in a timely fashion so they can actually go and see it???

sheesh

[Stecyk]

For example, four simultaneous screenings in Calgary (pop. 1.1 million) strikes me as excessive, especially since the hometown Alberta Ballet has never shown much inclination to promote ballet screenings, as far as I can tell. I hope it works out.

As you've outlined in a prior post, it's only being shown at Landmark theaters in Calgary. Alberta Ballet, however, does have its students attend the Bolshoi performances at the Chinook theater. I am not sure about performances shown at Landmark as I don't attend those.

This is certainly a confusing and disappointing arrangement.

[volcanohunter]

It's especially confusing when the information in the ROH database does not reflect the realities on the ground. In my vicinity threre are three cinemas at play, and as far as I can tell, Romeo and Juliet will be shown at two of those theaters, the Viscera/Carmen bill at one, The Nutcracker at all three and the Ashton bill at two of them. That's not an unreasonable projection of audience interest, but taking the "same time, same place" factor out of the equation obviously increases the risk that a viewer could unwittingly miss a production.

[sandik]

Thanks for this very exhaustive list, volcanohunter.

Could they make it any harder for people to find out whether a given ballet is being shown in their neighbourhood or not in a timely fashion so they can actually go and see it???

sheesh

Shhh, I'm sure that could be arranged.

[kbarber]

Shhh, I'm sure that could be arranged.

ROH should give volcanohunter some kind of medal for doing their publicity for them!

But what about all the Canadians who don't subscribe to balletalert? (I understand there ARE some, hard though that may be to believe).

[kbarber]

ROH should give volcanohunter some kind of medal for doing their publicity for them!

or at least free tix, eh, volcanohunter?

[volcanohunter]

Oh, I think lots of us here are involved in this Sisyphean effort.

[Stecyk]

Last year, all ROH performances shown in Calgary were at the two Landmark theaters: Country Hills, located in the extreme northern end, and, Shawnessy, extreme southern end. Prior to last year, ROH performances were shown at Cineplex. The Bolshoi performances are still shown at Cineplex. When attending Bolshoi performances, I go the Scotiabank Chinook Theater, which is located in the southern Calgary.

I didn't attend any of the ROH performances last year, as I thought the location was too inconvenient. Prior to last year, I noted that both ROH and Bolshoi were well attended at Cineplex, with perhaps Bolshoi attracting a slightly larger audience. Last year, the Bolshoi performances were very well attended, in part because Alberta Ballet students began attending. For those who didn't purchase their tickets in advance, they risked arriving at a sold-out theater. That happened to me once, though fortunately I was able to drive across to other Cineplex theater in northern Calgary. I learned my lesson and now buy my tickets in advance.

Today we attended Romeo and Juliet at the Shawnessy Landmark theater. The theater itself is fine, though a little far away. When we arrived, I noted that the marquee sign announced Romeo and Juliet began at 12:55 pm, the typical start time for Cineplex. Our tickets said 11:00 am. Fortunately, our tickets were correct and the marquee sign was wrong. We were about early by a bit more than a half hour and were the first to enter Theater Nine. At Cineplex, it's not uncommon for people to begin claiming their seats an hour prior to showtime. While we were watching the promotions of upcoming features to be shown in the months ahead, we were surprised to see that they were Cineplex features. The promotions literally had "Cineplex" written across the bottom of the screens. That's like walking into a Ford dealership and seeing advertisements for Chevrolet. At about ten minutes prior to showtime, there were about five people, including ourselves, in attendance. When the performance began, I counted about 13 people in attendance. Because of all the confusion, including the wrong start time on the marquee sign, I am not sure if 13 was representative of Shawnessy's attendance last year. If it is representative, I am certainly surprised ROH didn't switch back to Cineplex.

Aside from the low attendance, we enjoyed Romeo and Juliet. I will leave the review to others more capable.

[ewoqq]

I won't comment on the performance, though I did love the whole experience and was quite involved emotionally. I attended this performance at Riverport SilverCity (Richmond, BC). There were 14 patrons. Two years ago, there were from 25 - 40 patrons for the Bolshoi performances. I did attend a few Royal Ballet performances last year in the Landmark/Empire theatre. There were from 2 to 8 patrons attending - yikes!!

[Ashton Fan]

Might I suggest that you post some of your comments about the problem with the Royal Ballet's cinema exposure in North America on the ROH's website where they invite comments on the performances.Someone might notice it there. It is always difficult to know how much information gets back to the people at the top.about the sort of thing that you are describing.I suspect that very little does. It is my impression that the marketing department would be more aptly described as the department that counts the bums on seats at the Royal Opera House.

[Stecyk]

Might I suggest that you post some of your comments about the problem with the Royal Ballet's cinema exposure in North America on the ROH's website where they invite comments on the performances.Someone might notice it there. It is always difficult to know how much information gets back to the people at the top.about the sort of thing that you are describing.I suspect that very little does. It is my impression that the marketing department would be more aptly described as the department that counts the bums on seats at the Royal Opera House.

I looked for a place at ROH to provide input on the theater experience. I thought it should exist on this page somewhere: http://www.roh.org.uk/cinemas

After looking for a bit, I came up blank. Perhaps it is there somewhere.

I would expect that the marketing department and/or marketing agency is aware of attendance data on a per theater and per regions basis--for example, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and North America regions. If you're familiar with Microsoft Excel, they might even have a complex Pivot Table that can slice and dice the data in every way imaginable. Given the number of theaters, they are most likely interested in trends, not necessarily specific customer experiences. That is, is the attendance in Canada up or down from last year? Does the attendance trend warrant further exploration or changes to the theater line-ups?

My complaint with a specific theater regarding its marquee sign displaying the wrong start time is likely of little interest, because they simply can't track every individual theater complaint. If I have a complaint with the marquee sign, I should take it up with Landmark.

Even though I (and presumably Cineplex) have contacted ROH by phone to notify them that their theater list is inaccurate, I note that their website still lists four theaters for Calgary, when there are only two theaters. Possibly Canada is just too small of a market to be concerned about.

This is a long-winded message to say that I think they likely have most of the data they need to evaluate and make any desired changes. However, if I have overlooked a location on the ROH to provide input on the theater experience, please feel free to send them a message with a link to this thread. I also have an orphaned thread on this topic: http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/40673-no-royal-ballet-in-calgary-theatres/

Thank you Ashton Fan for your suggestion. Let's hope that ROH makes changes for next year.

[Ashton Fan]

Stecyk I take your point about the marketing department looking for trends in attendance rather than individual audience experience.However someone at the ROH was responsible for setting up the arrangements for screening performances in North America and that person ought to be interested if local arrangements are less than perfect. The late notification of venues for screening and mistakes over the time at which they will occur must have had an impact on the size of the current audience and may well put people off attending screenings in the future.

Of course the Opera House has no control over what goes on locally but those involved in putting the arrangements in place ought to be made aware of their current audience's dissatisfaction with what is happening on the ground.They have responded to complaints about breaks in transmission at particular cinemas in the past.But of course I don't know if anything more came of the complaints apart from it being acknowledged.But if you do nothing the chances are that the number of venues screening Royal Ballet performances will dwindle to a few in a couple of big cities.

Anyone interested in telling the ROH about their experience of the screening or the problems associated with late or inaccurate information about the screening could try putting "Your Reaction to Romeo and Juliet Screening" into their search engine.I don't pretend to understand the workings of the mind that put the ROH website together . It probably seems perfectly obvious and logical to them. It's just a pity that it doesn't seem quite so obvious to mere mortals.

[Stecyk]

Ashton Fan, your wish is my command.

I have created the following post:

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/your-reaction-romeo-and-juliet-in-cinemas-and-on-bp-big-screens-2015#comment-28(currently awaiting moderation)

Many of us who reside in Canada had a frustrating experience in trying to find the appropriate cinema and appropriate time. There was confusion between attending Landmark and Cineplex theaters. There is a long thread on Ballet Alert forum detailing some of our concerns. Here's the link to the thread:

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/40541-romeo-and-juliet-roh-2015-in-cinemas/

While I recommend reading all pages, I think you'll find Page 3 most useful.

Please feel free to follow up by email.

Because my post has a link in it (to this thread), it is awaiting moderation. But you have the content now. By completing the form, the ROH has my name, Kevin Stecyk, and email address. Let's see what happens.

[kbarber]

and to add to this saga, I just learned today from my ballet appreciation course students in Ottawa that the local paper has been announcing all week that R&J will be on at the Cineplex this coming weekend instead of last weekend (which it isn't!)

[volcanohunter]

I suppose that's not unlike the San Francisco Ballet promoting its film of Romeo and Juliet during World Ballet Day, even though the U.S. screening had taken place exactly one week earlier.

[volcanohunter]

I'll finally put in my two cents about the performance itself. Although the folks at the Royal Ballet like to wax poetic about MacMillan's production as timeless and a classic, my own feeling is that the second act in particular looks dated and tired. The "gaiety" of the street scenes is relentless to the point of being numbing, the harlots are unbearably tiresome, and I've always disliked the Mercutio-Tybalt duel, not least because Mercutio's being "hurt under [Romeo's] arm" is absent, meaning that Romeo is not inadvertently responsible for the tragedy, and Mercutio is instead killed by Tybalt's cowardly, drunken stab in the back. However, the third act is much better and here was carried by the very capable Sarah Lamb, an excellent dancer and actress, whose characterization was entirely her own. What was less clear was why she should be so obviously fascinated by Steven McRae's Romeo, because while his dancing was brilliantly fast and easy, the performance itself was not especially interesting. I'm starting to get the distressing sense that regardless of whether he's playing Romeo, Colas or a ballet prince, McRae has basically one way of being in love on stage, and it doesn't have all that many shades to it. Likewise, while Alexander Campbell's dancing had dazzling speed and clarity, there was little in the way of Mercutio's wit, temperament or tragedy. I have to agree with Luke Jennings that the most interesting performance probably came from Gary Avis as Tybalt, but whether his character's transformation from Shakespeare's "saucy boy" to Avis' zealous protector of the Capulet clan was justified would be up to each viewer to decide. (Tybalt resists Montague provocations until he is drunk, which seems to make Mercutio's death a "senseless" tragedy rather than an inevitable one.)

There was a decent-sized crowd at the cinema I visited. Initially there was a problem with the aspect ratio, with parts of the picture being stretched above and below the screen, but fortunately by the time of the ballroom scene this had been corrected. And while I am grateful that the volume settings for these ballet and opera presentations are not at the usual ear-splitting levels, in this case I think the music was too quiet. The Escalus theme at the beginning of Act 3 did not have the terrifying impact it typically has in the opera house, nor did Juliet's great running music make its usual oceanic impression. The solo trumpet in the first act and the brass section in general had some conspicuous rough spots. A woman sitting nearby noted that she "actually preferred" the Royal Ballet's version over the Bolshoi's. Well, I should hope so, because while MacMillan's version may not be perfect, Grigorovich's is perfectly horrendous. Honestly, the Cuthbertson-Bonelli performance was better, but this one is still undoubtedly worth seeing.