Guardian website and The Space to air Royal Opera Live in a bid to bring the arts to a wider audience
Following a successful partnership with the Royal Ballet in March of this year, the Guardian is to offer an unprecedented look into life behind the scenes for The Royal Opera with live streaming on The Space and the Guardian websites.
Speaking to The Drum shortly after the announcement was made Dipesh Morjaria, business director for multimedia at Guardian News and Media described the venture as “a really good opportunity for us to showcase arts as it is one of our strongest culture strands”.
Royal Opera Live will air on Monday 7 January 2013, from 10:30am to 9pm, and showcases a full working day for The Royal Opera featuring live rehearsals with both the Royal Opera Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Highlights will include footage of work backstage, and interviews with the likes of Rolando Villazón, John Tomlinson, Stephen Langridge, Simon Keenlyside and Ryan Wigglesworth.
Morjaria believes the partnership offers a number of things to the Guardian “firstly it offers us the opportunity to bring great content to a wider audience…Secondly it’s a good opportunity for us to showcase really good quality video in this particular sector, it’s generally quite expensive for us to do, this is a really good chance for us to work with an established partner and be able to do just that.”
As well as the behind-the-scenes action viewers will be able to experience Act III from Die Walküre, which was pre-recorded earlier in the season. Twenty-one cameras positioned in unique locations capture all the action revealing all aspects of the acts.
Presented by Suzy Klein with commentary from the director of The Royal Opera’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, Keith Warner, there will be three different streams available on The Space for Act III of Die Walküre. Audiences can chose to watch the act from backstage, or on the conductor camera following Antonio Pappano in the pit, or a wide-angle of the onstage action.
Morjaria explained that the BBC involvement in partners The Space meant that the live stream couldn’t be monetised but the media group were considering it for the “on demand content” adding “it won’t be a direct sponsorship or anything like that but maybe pre-rolls or routine website advertising around it”.
Royal Opera Live will feature glimpses into stage rehearsals for The Minotaur, a chorus music call for the new production of Nabucco and rehearsals for director of opera Kasper Holten’s new production of Eugene Onegin, amongst others.
Viewers are also encouraged to interact with the live streaming by Tweeting questions to be asked live on air. The interactive element is “very important” according to Morjaria as “it will open up a lot of discussion”.
Morjaria explains that ventures such as this not only drive a great deal of traffic to the Guardian bit also brings arts and culture to “a much wider audience, which from a Guardian perspective we’re keen to promote”.
The earlier partnership with the Royal Ballet exceeded all expectations with 200,000 live views on the day itself and a further one million views since. Morjaria explains he has the same high hopes for this venture commenting: "there is no reason we should expect any less from this one".
Viewers can watch Royal Opera Live via the Guardian or The Space websites, users comments and questions should be submitted via Twitter using the hashtag's #ROLive and #ROLquestions.