The National Ballet of Canada is broadcasting Saturday's 2 p.m. presentation of The Nutcracker live in HD in 79 Cineplex theatres across the country. The company launched the initiative last year—and drew an audience of more than 10,000 people. This year there are "at least 10 more theatres" participating, said Kevin Garland, the National Ballet's executive director. "Everybody in the performing arts world has been watching the Metropolitan Opera broadcast with much interest," she said. " We approached Cineplex last year and asked if they would be interested in doing a ballet performance. They jumped at The Nutcracker."
The ballet will be captured by six HD cameras at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts and transmitted live via satellite, said Garland, who noted that the broadcast is a massive undertaking. “We produce live ballet. We don’t know anything about producing live television." The company got some advice from New York's Metropolitan Opera—which launched a Live-in-HD program during the 2006-07 season—and turned to Joan Tosoni at Insight Productions for assistance. “She really masterminded the six cameras in the theatre," Garland said of Tosoni. "It’s a ballet with a lot of detail."
Having a production company on board "allowed us to put a budget to the project," said Garland. "It’s hugely expensive. It cost us $550,000 to do it and we got $80,000—half the theatre revenue." So, why is the National Ballet moving ahead with the initiative for a second year? “Because if we don’t do it, there will be an American or British company that will do it, and we think it’s important that Canadians see Canadian performances. It’s really audience development," Garland said.
She reported that the company received emails following last year’s broadcast from viewers across Canada who would never otherwise have had the opportunity to see the ballet. “It takes a lot of resources and a lot of time, but we’re hoping it will be an annual event. We’re very dependent on funding from sponsors," she said. This year, three corporate sponsors pulled out but TD Waterhouse and CTV signed on within the last month. Bravo will air Saturday's performance of The Nutcracker at 8 p.m. on December 18.
