NHK and Opéra national de Paris teams up on Giselle for NHK 8K

The program is a co-production with the Opéra national de Paris of the ultimate romantic ballet, Giselle. The executive producer for NHK is Kobayashi Yasuko, who has been making programs about musical performing arts for more than 20 years. An NHK crew used six 8K cameras and 22.2 multi-channel audio technology to capture the performance at the Palais Garnier on 4 February.

The star cast features Dorothée Gilbert as Giselle, Mathieu Ganio as Albrecht, Valentine Colasante as Myrtha, and Audric Bezard as Hilarion. The conductor is Koen Kessels.

Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, a state of emergency has been in place in Japan since 7 April. For Giselle, NHK devised an 8K HDR, 22.2ch postproduction workflow that involved the smallest possible number of staff members for the sake of safety. Channel controller Ochiai Jun said: ‘People can’t directly experience the performing arts right now, so I’m delighted that we can use television to bring viewers into one of the world’s finest centers of artistic excellence’.

Japan’s major TV broadcasters began broadcasting in ultra-high definition on satellite channels on 1 December 2018. The country’s only public broadcaster, NHK, launched 4K and 8K channels. NHK’s 8K channel operates for 12 hours (from 10am to 10pm) every day. Its content encompasses drama, music, documentaries, culture, and travel.