Dance events at The Festival Theatre are usually well attended so the management must have been disappointed at the feeble turn-out tonight. I doubt if there were 100 in the house.

Admittedly a satellite screening rather than a show in the flesh is a new departure for this theatre but the Cameo seems to have no problem rounding up a good crowd for screenings of opera, drama and dance so maybe it will catch on here as well.

I think dance fans missed a real treat not coming to see this production of Notre Dame de Paris from La Scala. Maybe if they had billed it as The Hunchback of Notre Dame it would have brought in the crowds who, like me, have an abiding memory of Quasimodo swinging down on a rope to rescue the lovely Maureen O'Hara. Here's that scene from the 1939 movie, way before my time so goodness knows when and where I saw it but it was burnt on my memory.
Now it doesn't happen quite like that in Roland Petit's ballet but the whole ballet in a French production from 1996 is on Youtube in half a dozen chunks and here's the bit that has the rescue in it. You get a good idea of the terrific costumes and staging and the general style of the piece from this. It's well worth going onto Youtube and watching the other sections, unless you'd rather see it live in Milan where it's running for another few weeks.  I'd certainly prefer to see shows in the flesh but satellite transmissions are a good substitute especially when you can see world class performers.

One of the little things I like about them is the feeling you get of almost being in the venue and this was very much the case tonight.  They are differently styled as theatres but recognisably of the same spirit and share a dark red, cream and gold colour scheme so that the walls of La Scala seemed to merge into the Festival Theatre's as they approached the proscenium and the laurel wreath above ours replaced the shield above theirs.  Quite spooky.