Hi everyone,
I'd like to let you know about Dutch National Ballet's new production of Giselle, which will be out on DVD and Blu-ray this summer! We don't have a definite release date yet but I will post it here when we do. Giselle will be on the Kultur label in the US and the NVC Arts label in the UK / Europe.

You can see a short clip here on our YouTube channel, we will upload more soon: http://www.youtube.com/3minuteswest

The clip shows an excerpt from our interview with Russian ballerina Anna Tysgankova, who danced Giselle. Albrecht is performed by Jozef Varga, Myrtha by Igone de Jongh and Hilarion by Jan Zerer.

Dutch National Ballet's new production is by Rachel Beaujean (former Dutch National ballerina, muse of Hans van Manen) and Ricardo Bustamante (former principal with ABT and SFB). Bustamante danced Giselle with the legendary Carla Fracci. It was a pleasure to watch him rehearsing the principal dancers and there is some behind the scenes footage included in the DVD bonus materials.

As the producer, I will look forward to hearing people's reactions!

Thank you for the heads up!

I'm glad to hear about this. I had begun to despair of seeing any new ballet releases from Kultur, so this is welcome news.

Very cool channel guys!! Keep up the good work.

Thanks volcanohunter. Your comment leads on to another discussion, which is - how difficult it is to get ballet productions (the filming side of things, I mean) off the ground these days!

I am old enough to remember the good old days when ballet was shown fairly frequently on TV in the UK. Now it's a rare event.

Thanks cubanmiamiboy, glad you like it!

BTers have ripped their hair out over this issue, for example, on this thread, which would certainly benefit from your input as a producer. Most of us can only speculate about how ballet comes to be filmed.
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=28457

For example, I'd be interested to know whether Dutch television has any sort of quota for ballet programming. DVDs of the Netherlands Opera seem to turn up fairly regularly, but there aren't nearly enough videos of the Dutch National Ballet for my taste.

Thanks for letting us know.

I saw the broadcast of the 2nd act on Dutch tv a couple of weeks ago and I liked it, so I'm curious for the first act now.

I just had a look at that thread, volcanohunter - and yes I could certainly add to that discussion! But possibly my insight would make everyone tear their hair out even more. (A newbie question, that thread is quite old now, should I post to that thread, or start a new one?)

I'm very glad to hear that you're eager to see more of Dutch National Ballet, because hopefully we will be bringing out a series of DVDs filmed there! That is the goal, anyway.

The situation in Holland is that there is only one broadcaster that shows opera and ballet, and that is a government-subsidised, public broadcaster - NPS. NPS exists for one reason only - to bring culture to the audience! Every Netherlands Opera DVD that you see on the market has been shown on NPS. The reason - surprise surprise, the opera receives far more support than the ballet. I don't think I am divulging any secrets when I say that there is a specific and very generous subsidy which enables many, many opera productions here to be filmed. No such subsidy exists for the ballet.

However, luckily for us, NPS is enthusiastic about the national ballet and they were enormously helpful and generous in making the Giselle project happen. It would have been almost impossible without them.

There is, and always has been, this idea that opera is 'more popular' than ballet. Opera has certainly been more successful in hyping itself. However opera fans would probably be surprised to know that ballet DVDs outsell opera DVDs. It makes sense really - ballet appeals to a much wider age range, and there are no language barriers! Now if only we could convince the broadcasters of that again...

I'm really happy to hear that you liked it, Lidewij! Ben je Nederlands?

The NPS will broadcast the complete ballet in December. But the DVD will be out before then!

There's no reason not to continue the thread. I'm sure everyone who read it the first time around would be very interested in learning about filming subsidies, DVD sales and the like.

Absolutely. We regularly resurrect older threads. In fact, many Ballet Talk members click the "View New Posts" button at the top right of the page (under the toolbar) to find out what is new, and the date the thread started doesn't affect whether a new post is on the list.

Is that the usual way in the Netherlands? In the UK, the DVD comes out long after the TV showing. If ever!

I can't wait to see this. Giselle is my favorite ballet. What is the running time for this version?

Andrew73 - you're right, it's unusual, but Act 2 was already broadcast in the Netherlands on May 10th.... so technically the DVD is coming out after the first broadcast...

Wedgewes, Giselle is my favourite too, so having the opportunity to film it was wonderful! The full ballet is around 112 minutes. I hope you enjoy it.

Has there been any further word on when we can expect this to be available?

Giselle is now listed on the Kultur web site. It will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on January 26, 2010 (surely not 2009, as stated on the site).

http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/-str...r%2C/Detail.bok
http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/-str...r%2C/Detail.bok

Edited to add: Amazon.com is taking pre-orders.