How about a Christmas day show featuring a cast of 5,000 with an original story and music? Sounds good.
Also, we need a huge fireworks display. No problem.
And it will be televised live. Okay.
And it all happens in the middle of the Amazon.
When Hardrive Productions in Orlando, Florida, was asked to produce the Glorioso spectacular for the third Christmas in a row, the Hardrive team said “absolutely.”
Pamela Bolling and Ron Rodriguez of Hardrive set to work assembling a world‐class team of writers, directors, composers, choreographers, and designers. Hardrive works with and supervises Brazilian companies to build sets, staging, costumes, lighting, and sound set‐up. The team's vast credentials include Olympic opening ceremonies, Rose Bowl parades, Super Bowl half‐time shows, Walt Disney World spectaculars, Miss America pageants, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Grammy awards, and many other high‐profile events. Most team members have honors and accolades to their names, including the Emmy award-winning television director that led the television coverage of Glorioso.
The Hardrive team branded the annual spectacular Glorioso when it began working with the State of Amazonas Secretary of Culture in Manaus, Brazil, three years ago. The team met with the Brazilian team to pitch the storyline and then spent the year developing the show, which included original songs and animation for massive LED video walls.
The Hardrive team relocated to Manaus at the beginning of December to begin rehearsals and recording sessions and to install the physical staging and equipment. Outdoor stages were erected around the historic Teatro Amazonas, a world‐famous opera house built in 1896. The cast of approximately 5,000 was distributed amongst the stages to present the same production to live audiences around the building. The stage inside the Teatro Amazonas was also used, while the Amazonas Philharmonic played the show. There were more than 100,000 people in the live audience. Meanwhile, the U.S. television team directed a large crew of cameras from Amazon SAT to get the best coverage for the show, which was broadcast globally.
Once the script and songs were written they were translated into Portuguese and then reverse translated back to English to see if anything was lost in translation. The Hardrive team also had a cadre of interpreters for every meeting throughout the year, and each member of the team had their own interpreter as they divided and conquered during the December rehearsal period and show time.
Strategically, Manaus is difficult to get to and most travel is by air or boat. That takes careful and detailed planning to get equipment and supplies into the city to support the mammoth production. There were many parts that had to stay moving to deliver this high-quality show on time, but Hardrive has turned a spectacular featuring a cast of thousands into a well‐oiled machine. As a result, Hardrive was able to share in the presentation of this Christmas gift with its Brazilian counterparts from the middle of the Amazon to the whole world.
