An upcoming tour of the ballet Dracula has become a tale of blood-sucking horror for Australia's orchestral musicians.
The West Australian Ballet's Adelaide dance performances based on the Bram Stoker classic, will use a recording by the WA Symphony Orchestra instead of hiring musicians to play live.
"When we heard that West Australian Ballet were using a backing track, it was a head-in-the-hands moment," said Adelaide Symphony Orchestra violinist Lachlan Bramble.
Bramble is the president of the Symphony Orchestra Musician Association, which represents Australia’s professional orchestra musicians.
He argues dancers rely on red-blooded musicians playing live to respond to their movements in real time, and says recorded music is bad for audiences too.
"The dynamics, the emotional power of an orchestra can't be replicated by loudspeakers and a PA system," he said.
More than 500 orchestral musicians have supported a Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance motion demanding the WA Ballet hire musicians for the tour.
The motion was unanimously supported by members from more than half a dozen leading Australian orchestras including the West Australian Symphony, the union said.
“When organisations rely on taxpayer dollars to operate (it is fair to) expect them to provide meaningful employment for real people, rather than seeking ways to cut corners,” MEAA musicians director Paul Davies said.
The tour could not afford live musicians for Dracula in Adelaide because the company does not receive state or federal funding for touring, the ballet company said in a statement.
"The suggestion that West Australian Ballet does not support live music is simply wrong," it said.
The four-day trial run at the Festival Theatre in April was designed to test whether interstate touring was financially viable in the longer term, according to the company's executive director Lauren Major, who said it hoped to return with live musicians.
"We need to test whether there is an audience in Adelaide for the West Australian Ballet, as we have not been there for well over a decade," she said.
The company maintains it is one of the biggest employers of performing artists in WA.
Musicians were paid for their time making the recording of Wojciech Kilar’s score conducted by Jessica Gethin, and will receive royalties from the Adelaide tour, it said.
Adelaide freelance violinist Nadia Buck has played with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, and said she would have expected to be engaged on a show like Dracula.
"It's a real pity and very disappointing, because live music is so important for ballet, it's not a luxury," she said.
Live productions including commercial musicals increasingly rely on recorded music, according to Buck, making her work ever more precarious.
Dracula will also run in Perth during May at His Majesty's Theatre, with the WA Symphony playing live.
