Arts should not be for minorities: our partnership with the Royal Opera House (ROH) aims to connect with different audiences and particularly to create cultural opportunities for new generations. We are working with the ROH to promote live cinema relays of productions from the company’s 2015-2016 season in around 100 cinemas all over Spain.
We are giving Spanish audiences the opportunity to enjoy classics like the ballets Romeo and Juliet by Kenneth Macmillan or the Nutcracker by Peter Wright. Operas such as Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (directed by David McVicar) or Verdi’s La Traviata (directed by Richard Eyre) are also being broadcast from Covent Garden.
Key to this initiative is that we are not just broadcasting the productions but cooperating with different cinemas to promote tickets sales. Before the premiere, we organised a master class with two dancers from the Royal Ballet which attracted significant media coverage. As a result, in Madrid alone, more than 800 people attended the season’s premiere – many of them students and young people. In addition, we are holding raffles on our Facebook page for free tickets to each premiere.
And this is just the beginning: our third promotional route brings in an ambitious educational component. We are organising screenings for schools, accompanied by teaching materials which will provide pupils with a better understanding of opera and ballet.