Thursday, October 25, 2007
Pittsburgh Ballet turns first profit in 6 years
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Appearing to regain its financial footing, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre said Wednesday it ended the year with its first surplus in six years and with a 26 percent jump in ticket sales, reversing an 11-year slide."
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5 comments:
I think it's great how the city has rallied behind the Pittsburgh Ballet over the last year. It's also impressive how much difference and support there is to bring live music back to the ballet. I appreciate the donation tactic of the "anonymous donor" to encourage others to donate by having his/her donation be matched to receive the largest possible gift. So kudos to them and I hope the luck continues. I'm sure that the city will only benefit if the Ballet and other arts groups in the area continue to thrive.
Ballet is an old art form of performance, and basically it needs fundamental knowledge to appreciate it. Plus, nowadays, lots of performances accompanied with the newest technology are the strong competitors for ballet. Therefore, that Pittsburgh Ballet is able to turn to profit is indeed good news although it is likely live music is the major reason of bringing profit. After all, orchestra is a part of ballet performance. Without live music, ballet would be odd.
This is great news for the Ballet. I've seen some of their work before and they really deserve to make a profit. I'm sure the music is a major part of the success. Their is just something about having live music that makes performances so much more real to the audience. It also give the dancers more flexibility to change timing every night they perform giving a new dynamic to performance.
I half wonder if there is a new administrative head with the ballet company that worked them into the black or simply audiences have changed and ballet is merely is more demand than previous years. Either way, I'm glad they a) brought back the orechestra and b) can continue the company's work. It would be a shame for Pittsburgh to lose an art form like that. Even if you don't like the dancing portion, you can always go to enjoy the music.
Really this shows just how hard it is to make money in this business. Losing money is an accepted practice it seems. Any for profit company losing money for 6 years would have been shut down for sure by now. This also shows how audiences will react to canned music in the arts, not well. People go to liver performances to see and hear live performers. I wonder if the trend of musical theatre to consolidate and digitize the instrumentation will have the same result and lead back to more live music in the same way that the ballet has.
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