Santa to bring us Rockettes in ’06
Radio City to do 84 holiday shows at Hummingbird Will fill gap after Nutcracker’s swan song this season
Radio City’s Rockettes made a flying visit to Toronto to start spreading the news that the Radio City Christmas Spectacular will be coming to town a year from now. The dancers made a splashy entrance by descending a staircase, sort of like the dancing waiters in Hello, Dolly! But the staircase in question was the one leading from the mezzanine to the main lobby of the Hummingbird Centre. And they brought their highkicking technique to such standard Yule tunes as “ Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” A beaming Dan Brambilla, CEO of the Hummingbird, remarked that reports of the centre’s impending death — after the departure of the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada — have been exaggerated.
In fact the Radio City show — coming to Canada for the first time — will play Toronto for seven weeks, Nov. 14 to Dec. 31, 2006, packing in 84 shows.
That means it is almost certain to be seen by a lot more people than the Nutcracker, the traditional Christmas ballet that this year will do a final turn on the Hummingbird stage after spending every holiday season there for 40 years.
Since the Rockettes and the Radio City show have a habit of doing near- sellout business everywhere they appear, they’re likely to attract well over 200,000 people during their Toronto engagement. The show will also boost tourism in Toronto in what has traditionally not been a peak period. The Hummingbird has already launched an aggressive marketing campaign more than a year in advance.
Indeed, Radio City tickets for groups went on sale yesterday.
“ The Hummingbird is about to enter a new and exciting phase as it asserts itself as a theatre solely reliant on its programming,” Brambilla says.
“ There has been a long courtship between the Hummingbird and Radio City Entertainment.” The Rockettes first appeared in New York at the opening of the Radio City Music Hall in December of 1932. For decades, however, the stage show was combined with first- run movie presentations. But in 1979, when the theatre was threatened with demolition, regular movie showings ceased and producers expanded the annual live Christmas show.
It is only since 1994 that in addition to the New York company, Radio City has sent troupes to such cities as Detroit, Chicago and Orlando. The Toronto booking is its first outside the United States. The show has a cast of 54, including 20 Rockettes, 22 singerdancers, four children, six little people and Santa Claus. Perhaps the most famous scene in the show is the “ Parade of Wooden Soldiers,” which the Rockettes have performed every year at Radio City Music Hall since 1933.