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Dawnstar - I am very long in the tooth, so I enjoy your fresh look at everything very much - keep posting. What a joy this Ashton programme has been. I have seen all 5 shows to date and I recall booking for Serenade/Petrushka/New Ashton Ballet back in 1976. An Ashton premiere was always a cause of anticipation and excitement and this turned out to be A Month in the Country. I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Bracewell and Muntagirov in Month. I found Bracewell too full of angst, as if he had wandered out of Mayerling. Muntagirov breathed happiness in each of his pas de deux, enjoying his flirtation with Katia and relishing every moment of passion with Natalia Petrovna. As they embraced at the end of the pas de deux, it was as if time stood still and neither they nor I wanted the idyll to end, I wanted that snapshot of bliss to go on forever - imprinted as it was on their faces. Then there is the wonderful Gary Avis, proving that less is more. He stands calm and controlled, but his eyes blaze with jealousy and hatred. How he relishes dismissing Beliaev, with just a couple of gestures and a steely glare.

Deanne Bergsma had an unforgettable presence on stage, so stylish and elegant. Her face was often mysterious, almost hypnotic, in the way she drew your attention. I cannot watch Enigma Variations without remembering her as Lady Mary Lygon. After she retired from the Royal Ballet, she came back in 1992 as Tadzio's mother, "the Lady of the Pearls", in Death in Venice. It was a joy to encounter her elegance and sophistication once more, soft yet commanding. https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/from-left-to-right-ballet-dancers-monica-mason-keith-rosson-news-photo/1293625

On a related topic, why are evenings of modern choreography so brief? Not long ago, ENB presented La Sylphide and Song of the Earth in a double bill, full of classical dancing. The recent Forsythe programme presented only two ballets, barely one hour of dancing and we were in and out of the theatre in 90 minutes. With no live orchestra either, I felt distinctly short changed. It is standard for ballet companies, not least the Royal Ballet, to perform a double Swan Lake on a Saturday. The ladies of the corps de ballet seem to have the stamina to get through this challenge. Apparently 54 minutes is sufficient for a complete evening of Crystal Pite's new ballet. Why can't the Royal Ballet provide the audience and its own dancers with the opportunity of a full evening of dance? Maybe they could complement the group dance of Crystal Pite with excellent principal and soloist performances in Dances at a Gathering.

Crystal Pite's existing Flight Pattern is set to music from Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. The new full-length ballet will be extended to set the entire Gorecki work, which according to wikipedia lasts about 54 minutes. Seven performances are programmed between 18 October and 3 November. The Royal Ballet season has attracted much criticism above for its limited range, encompassing only 8 shows in the main house. This morning the English National Opera has announced its 2022-23 season, with only 9 productions across the whole year. Announced for 27 April to 6 May, is Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, six performances sung in Polish, in an "unprecedented" staged production of Gorecki's beloved work. Hardly unprecedented, when the Royal Ballet are performing it on stage barely six months earlier. Given that both seasons are very limited in their breadth of repertoire, this appears to be a disappointing and poorly planned duplication.

Ivan's talk is inspirational and I recommend everyone to watch it. He talks about the political situation, his own family, the artistic situation in Ukraine, some of his many career achievements and his plans for the future. it is indeed affecting, but also reflects his deep thinking and determined leadership. He speaks with passion about a full-length Ukrainian ballet, The Forest Song, which has never been seen in the UK - I don't think it has been performed outside Ukraine. As he speaks of this ballet at 35.08 in the recording, you can clearly hear the birds singing at dusk outside in Ivan's garden.

Dawnstar - you wrote on another thread on Thursday that you have not been to many ballet galas. I was looking out to see what you thought of yesterday's gala and I am delighted to read how much you enjoyed it. Not every gala is like this one; sometimes they can be a little repetitious. The artistic programming of this wonderful gala was exceptional.

You can see Gabriele Frola undertaking the same jumps in this short clip of Diana and Actaeon from a previous Ivan Putrov gala. The jumps occur about 1 minute in.

A simply amazing evening - no-one danced twice - to see all those stars lined up together on stage at the end! It will be one of those galas, which linger long in the memory, like the famous Ashton Retirement Gala in 1970. An artistic triumph for Ivan Putrov, beyond pure logistics, fundraising and compassion. My stand out moments were Luca Acri - heartbreaking in the Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem with a full chorus Alina Cojocaru and Mathieu Ganio - so understated, yet so passionate - sophisticated and elegant - in The Lady of the Camellias Mayara Magri and Gabriele Frola in a breathtakingly virtuoso Corsaire pas de deux Several Royal Ballet ballerinas fighting back the tears at the end I will tell my grandchildren I was there.

I understand that Marianna Tsembenhoi, an Aud Jebsen Young Dancer, who is Ukrainian, will be dancing in the gala. http://www.roh.org.uk/people/marianna-tsembenhoi

Ivan Putrov gave an interview today (Thursday) on Radio 4. It starts at 40 minutes in. World at One - 17/03/2022 - BBC Sounds Ivan Putrov also gave a TV interview (Thursday) to the BBC. BBC iPlayer - Search - BALLET STARS UNITE

New York - the entire cast of Don Carlos (in costume) sang the Ukrainian National Anthem from the stage of the Met last night. The young man with his hand on his heart not singing from a text is clearly Ukrainian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUfwy3f3R4s

Ivan and Dmitri Zagrebin (of the Royal Swedish Ballet) were on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning and it was very emotional. You can hear them here at 2.53.40 into the programme - the last item before the 9 am news. You can access BBC sounds from overseas. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00154pd

Does anyone have any thoughts on the names of the leading characters in Swan Lake? Odette and Odile sound French, whereas Siegfried (Victory in Peace) and Rothbart (Redbeard) are clearly German. The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi in Moscow in February 1877 with choreography by Julius Reisinger, who has a German name, but was actually Czech. At that time, Czechia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its intellectuals and middle class all spoke German - similar to the use of French by the Russia aristocracy. Tchaikovsky was a great Wagner fan and had attended the first performance of the Ring Cycle at Bayreuth in 1876, so maybe the name Siegfried was his idea. Tchaikovsky's swan theme is derived from the leitmotif of the forbidden question in Lohengrin.

It was a remarkable evening - a chance to escape for a few hours from the misery of the news. Vadim was at his stunning virtuoso best in Act Three, but even more tragic than usual in the white acts - a performance of magnificent contrasts by a great artist. We are so lucky to have him in the Royal Ballet. The audience went wild after his Black Swan solo.

The English National Opera played the Ukrainian National Anthem before last night's performance of La Boheme. It seems very emotional on the twitter clip.

If you google Olga Balakleets and read the CV she has posted herself, you will see that she has close links with the current regime. In September 2010 she received a special medal from President Medvedev and in June 2019 she was awarded the Pushkin Medal, authorised by President Putin himself, as well as a number of personal appointments from the Russian Embassy in London. It would be remarkably tasteless to go ahead with this Gala, while Ukrainian civilians are being killed and exiled across their country. It would not be appropriate for national institutions funded and subsidised by the Arts Council and the British taxpayer, to take part in this celebration - not least the English National Ballet Orchestra and the London Coliseum Theatre. I urge Olga Balakleets to act responsibly and sensitively and pull this Gala.

1.30 am - Just got home after my usual train was cancelled due to a reduced timetable. Lots to say tomorrow, but for now Jeffrey Cirio IS a total class act. He held the stage and injected emotion, passion and pathos at every stage of his performance, a real personality and not a cardboard cipher. For me the highlight of the evening was the beautiful pas de deux with Raymonda towards the end of Act II, where he oozed desire and longing. There was a shock for Raymonda towards the end of her Act III variation, when she suddenly drew up short to see Abdur standing there. There was a lot of activity all evening and very little calm, but Jeffrey Cirio provided moments of stasis and you you could feel his pain and grief at the end of the ballet.

Could someone write in plain English. What is the DM facility? What is an AUP?

Capybara, you have put you finger on a booking problem at the Coliseum. When you google the Coliseum box office, booking agencies come up, masquerading as the official box office and (as I understand it) acting for the box office on an agency basis. Now I go through the ENB website, to make sure I find the Coliseum box office itself. A friend of mine wanted to see a particular cast in The Nutcracker, but booked the evening instead of the matinee. His mistake! When he tried to swap tickets, the Coliseum Box office were attentive, but unable to help, as the tickets had not been booked through them. The ticket agency were unhelpful - and he ended up purchasing a second set of tickets and wasting the evening tickets.

DNB's version is a brand new production by the Associate Artistic Director, Rachel Beaujean. DNB has not had Raymonda in its repertoire before. By all accounts, it is a more traditional production, both in choreography and design.

The performances on the 18th and 19th January were cancelled, when the run was reduced from 14 to 10 performances just before Christmas. Casting was never announced for these performances. So now the box office is having to reinstate these performances on the website.

Dutch National Ballet have been in rehearsal for their new production of Raymonda for several weeks. They have just announced that they are postponing the premiere from February to April.

Yes - I stand corrected!

Your posts above have taken me down memory lane. Prodigal Son was first presented by the Royal Ballet in a triple bill of Balanchine works all new to the repertoire - The Four Temperaments, Agon, Prodigal Son. Prior to that the only Balanchine works in the Royal Ballet repertoire were Ballet Imperial and Apollo. It was a remarkable evening and an extraordinarily innovative programme (for audience and dancers alike) commissioned by the director, Kenneth MacMillan. Whoever said he was a poor director? The first cast was Rudolf Nureyev with Deanne Bergsma as the Siren (what a cast!), but I also remember the later performances by Ivan Putrov and Zenaida Yanowsky. He was so naive and vulnerable; she was predatory and domineering. During the dance of the two servants, I hardly noticed them. I was gripped by the tantalisingly slow dance of Ivan and Zenaida's hands, as they painstakingly moved them millimetre by millimetre towards each other, until they finally touched fingers. Turning to Anastasia, I attended the general rehearsal in 1971. The Barry Kay designs were breathtakingly beautiful, with the first act set in a forest of silver birch trees - so Russian. The wonderful Svetlana Beriosova as a nervous, protective Tsarina, repeated her Lady Elgar - and Lynn Seymour was matchless as Anastasia, one of the great dramatic performances of her career. I will never forget her wringing her hands in frustration, as the orchestra started to pick up in Act III. Kenneth MacMillan died, before DNA evidence finally disproved the Anna Anderson claims to be the real Anastasia - so he never knew the truth. In my view distorted history does not lessen the power of a work of art - think of Verdi's Don Carlos, Donizetti's Maria Stuarda or Shakespeare's Richard III.

I had a look on New Year's Day at the Raymonda ticket position on the Coliseum website. On 17 December they had sold or reserved an estimated 10,460 tickets against an estimated capacity of 32,522 across 14 performances. This represented sales at 32% of capacity. Since then they have cancelled 4 performances, which would have prompted a refund in respect of 2,504 of the tickets sold on 17 December. As of 1 January, they had sold or reserved an estimated 9,251 tickets against an estimated capacity of 23,230 across 10 performances. This represents sales at 40% of capacity.