I saw this show but missed Rarmion I have been slow with a report but here is a report of the opening night in Sydney.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/ar ... 6310661667
I saw this in Melbourne in one of the smaller inside courts used for the Australian Tennis Open. Overhead were 2 parallel rail tracks in the roof, from the stage and from the closest set to the stage, were runoffs to behind the stage.
The Dragons on the ground, were powered by engines attached to the rear.It was most impressive.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/ar ... 6310661667
AMONG the souvenirs on sale at How to Train Your Dragon Arena Spectacular are horned helmets of the kind that cartoon Vikings wear: the horns flashed red and blue on juvenile heads throughout the show and for some time afterwards on the train home.
Whether actual Vikings wore helmets like these is debatable, but they have become a symbol of so many other things, not least when worn by fat ladies singing. The helmet is a cliche of 19th-century opera of the Wagnerian kind. Opera-goers will make the connection: the scale, spectacle and exhilaration of How to Train Your Dragon owes much to the conventions of opera, not least the horned helmets and dragons.
Arena entertainments seem to be a growth industry. HTTYD, a co-presentation between Hollywood giant DreamWorks and local entertainment company Global Creatures, is roaring its way up the east coast. The multi-million-dollar production (Global Creatures won't divulge the cost) has played 5000-seat arenas in Melbourne and Sydney, and opens in Brisbane tomorrow.
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And on Saturday night the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour presentation of La Traviata made its sensational debut, recasting Verdi's opera as an outdoor entertainment for 3000 people a night. The $11.5 million production has reached $4.6m in ticket sales, towards a target of $6m.
Both shows, at heart, are human dramas of love and relationships (although the one about a dying prostitute ends rather more badly than the children's coming-of-age drama). And they both face similar problems of scale: how to fill an oversize stage with stunning theatrical effects while not swamping the human story. In other words: how do you add wow factor and avoid empty spectacle?
HTTYD, based on the 2010 DreamWorks animation, is the story of a boy called Hiccup who befriends a dragon when his Viking village has been "doing battle with dragons for 17 generations". It's played out on a stage the size of a football field, a scrim the size of nine movie screens and with animatronic dragons 8m to 20m long. The Vikings look tiny in comparison, and perhaps that is the point.
There are some terrific moments, the first and best when Hiccup climbs on to Toothless's back, and boy and dragon fly over a virtual seascape and rocky cliffs, to a swelling musical score. Later, the most fearsome dragon, the Red Death, makes his presence felt by revealing only his hideous 5m-wide head and 20m tail.
The fire-breathing reptiles are a potent presence and their dramatic purpose can be guessed at: not only as formidable foes of the Viking villagers but as symbols of the adult world that awaits Hiccup and his girlfriend Astrid. If this theme was hinted at in the movie, it becomes a genuine rite of passage when there are monstrous life-size dragons with which to contend.
Similarly, HOSH uses simple symbols and gestures, made large, to transmit the themes of La Traviata. The enormous chandelier and stage area, made to resemble an ornate framed mirror, suggest the glittering social world of Violetta and its vanities.
The human dimension could easily be lost in the outdoors but director Francesca Zambello clearly signposts the drama. For example, she had Violetta against a large red circle - as telling as a scarlet letter - in her Act II confrontation with Alfredo, and fired a single funereal firework at Violetta's dying breath. These things would be absurdly overstated in a proscenium arch theatre, but were stunningly effective on the harbour stage.
As always in these settings, though, the problems come down to amplification: the artificial projection of actors or singers beyond natural human range.
At Saturday's performance of La Traviata, the hidden orchestra and singers were wired for sound, the music emerging via a mixing desk. While the mix was wonderfully clear, the experience is very different from the natural acoustic of the theatre, and the close-up voices take getting used to. The amplification challenges in How to Train Your Dragon are not auditory but relate to the storytelling.
Director Nigel Jamieson uses tricks of the trade to make the connection between characters and audience: from the lone figure standing on stage, to animations of Hiccup's hand making a drawing (thus suggesting human scale) and careful blocking in the scenes with boy and dragon to make their relationship appear plausible.
Strangely, and despite all the projection technology in the room, we are never shown an actual human face in close-up that may register fear, delight or love. And there are few occasions for audience participation in this family show, something the producers may address as it evolves.
Global Creatures has made a specialty of taking animatronic beasts on worldwide walkabout, first with Walking with Dinosaurs and now with How to Train Your Dragon. The company has other big-ticket items on its slate, with future attractions to include stage versions of King Kong and Strictly Ballroom.
Opera Australia's HOSH is initially a three-year project - next year comes Carmen, followed by Madam Butterfly - and one can imagine such an event becoming a regular fixture, like the famous arena operas in Italy or those on Lake Constance in Austria.
It signals a worldwide trend in theatre production, and new opportunities for Australian stagecraft: arena-size entertainments that tour the world and draw on multinational creative teams.
Perhaps your correspondent is betraying a personal preference by wishing for a collaboration between Global Creatures and Opera Australia: next year's production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, starring Red Death as the dragon Fafner. That's something even Wagner, master of theatrical shock and awe, would pay to see.
How to train your dragon with Rarmion Newton
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