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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Cutting-edge virtual reality video screens, teams of acrobats and a big, red, leather codpiece brought the orchestration of 19th century French romantic composer Hector Berlioz to life in real-time at Capitol Theatre on the weekend.

La Damnation de Faust broadcast live from New York's Metropolitan Opera to the local screen on Saturday morning. It was part of the Met Live in High Definition series that has run at the theatre every few weeks for the past year.

"We don't really have any setup to be on an opera tour circuit so I think it's pretty cool that the technology allows us to be able to watch this from the comfort our own movie theatre," said classical music enthusiast Shad Turner. "We're pretty fortunate that we have the ability to access basically the finest of the opera arts so far away from where it takes place."

Turner attended about eight opera broadcasts since they started screening locally last year.

The Faust opera was directed by Quebec's Robert LePage, a multidisciplinary visionary who marries live performance with multimedia technology.

The acrobatic choreography and elaborate costumes evoked the creativity of Cirque du Soleil, with whom LePage collaborated for several Las Vegas performances.

As Mephistopheles, bass-baritone John Relyea projected his character's sly and dangerous charm. Relyea was dressed in a tight, fur-fringed red leather uniform with three-foot-long feathers pluming from his cap and a large codpiece slung around his belt.

Erotic dance scenes and chilling depictions of soldiers marching into battle stretched the emotion emanating from the orchestra pit to new heights.

"La Damnation de Faust was fairly mind-blowing," Turner said. "I've never seen the integration of cinematic technology with any live theatre or opera before. We normally see opera obeying all the normal stage rules of theatre and we don't see opera taking as many staging and choreographing risks. It was exciting."

The opera, which recounts the legend of a philosopher pawning his soul to the devil, featured innovative media technology developed by LePage's Quebec company Ex Machina. Three story video screens provided the backdrop, with flocks of birds, sentient trees and the flames of hell responding to the actors' movements on stage.

"When I got into that theatre I saw what high definition can do," said Maureen Crotty, who has also attended about eight live broadcasts at the theatre in the past year. "This is better than being there. The cameras go right into the orchestra pit and you can see the strings vibrating. You don't have the sound of what that concert hall sounds like but the visual makes up for it."

Crotty has attended about four productions at the Met theatre in New York. The live version broadcast in Yellowknife has the added benefit of live backstage interviews and other features missed by the people actually sitting in the audience in New York, she said.

The next Met live broadcast in Yellowknife will be on Saturday, Dec. 20 at 10 a.m. featuring Thais, a story about an Egyptian courtesan on a sensual spiritual quest.