“Last season, I was tickled to learn, the Royal Ballet’s live cinema relay of Tchaikovsky’s seasonal favourite The Nutcracker beat the James Bond movie Skyfall at the cinema box-office, and came second only to The Hobbit. This year, the number of live opera, ballet and theatre productions that will be available to global cinema audiences is bigger than ever, with two million Britons expected to partake. ‘Event cinema’, as it is being dubbed, is now worth an estimated £15m ($23m) in the UK alone and shows no sign of abating.”