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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.

I enjoyed the show this afternoon, but I could not understand the omission of the Arabian Dance - is it a covid cut or a woke cut? In the finale after the grand pas de deux, the Butterfly and Drosselmeyer came on in place of the Arabian couple. The Butterfly ran round the wings and came on again a minute later as herself.

Dawnstar and Emeralds - you have both posted above about Francesco Gabriele Frola and his jumps. He danced Diana and Actaeon at Ivan Putrov's Ukrainian Ballet Gala with Natalia de Froberville. Dance Europe has posted his variation and the coda on you tube. I am not sure what the rules are about putting links here, but if you go on You Tube and search for Diana and Actaeon (Dance Europe channel), you will find it.

I am not sure why English National Ballet are withholding the casting for Raymonda, whether it is because they are disorganised, or out of a company policy to dampen down the fanbase rivalries of the ballet public for individual dancers and focus on the company ethic. I, for one, have been holding off booking any tickets, until casting is announced - and I know that goes for some of my friends. Now, with the omicron virus sweeping across our theatreland, I am certainly not going to book now - I will wait and see. The Coliseum box office website helpfully states the number of seats available in each of the four sections of the house - Stalls, Dress Circle, Upper Circle and Balcony. I estimate the capacity for Raymonda to be 2,323 per performance or 32,522 across the 14 Raymonda performances. The website shows that there are 22,062 seats available as of this morning, representing 68% of capacity. Put another way, they have sold (or reserved) only 32% of the tickets. Across the season, they have sold (or reserved) 56% of stalls tickets, 37% of dress circle tickets, 18% in the upper circle and 16% in the balcony. The most heavily sold performances are the first Saturday (45%) and opening night (44%). The least heavily sold performances are the Wednesday (24%) and Tuesday (26%) of the second week and the schools matinee (25%) in the first week. When a potential customer scans the website and sees acres of unsold seats, it rings alarm bells. Is this show worth seeing? Is it suitable for children? Should I wait for the inevitable discounted offers nearer the date of performance? With other theatres suspending performances across Britain, because of local outbreaks of covid infections, it begs the question as to whether these shows will go ahead. If I were the marketing manager of ENB, I would publish the casting this morning, in an attempt to sell a few more tickets now to the regular ballet public, who know the principal dancers of ENB, while the ballet public are still confident enough to buy them.

Hi Jeanette, I have sought answers to your questions and I need to correct some significant errors in my description above, which your erudition has already detected. I am an unworthy messenger, but don't shoot me. It has been difficult tracking people down, because The Romance of the Rosebud is the centrepiece of a much larger ballet festival at the Academy, involving other institutions, so everyone seems to be either impossibly busy or recovering from exhaustion. First of all you are quite correct that the Stepanov notation for this ballet has not survived, so Vassily Medvedev's production is a re-imagining of the choreography. I understand that Drigo's orchestral scores are held in the library of the Mariinsky Theatre and that they may not be available currently for wider academic study. When Drigo retired and returned from Russia to Italy, he took a number of piano scores with him. The production team tracked down these scores to a library in Italy and a Kazakh composer selected music from the scores and orchestrated the selections for this performance. So once again, you were absolutely spot on with your impressive Drigo knowledge, although I am advised by someone, who danced in The Awakening of Flora, that no music from that ballet was used for The Romance of the Rosebud. The original costume designs by Ivan Vsevolozhky are in the Theatre Museum in St. Petersburg and these were used to create the costumes - so it was a considerable undertaking by the Academy. I am not sure about the provenance of the backcloth. Apparently your comments have been seen, translated and read in Kazakhstan - and your final paragraph was particularly appreciated.

This performance is by the school, not the company. It runs for just over an hour and a half.

Today the Kazakh National Academy of Choreography in Astana presented the world premiere of Marius Petipa's last ballet, The Romance of the Rosebud and the Butterfly, which was completely choreographed by Petipa to a specially commissioned score by Riccardo Drigo and recorded in Stepanov notation, scheduled for its premiere on 23 January 1904 at the Hermitage Theatre, St. Petersburg, but inexplicably cancelled before the first performance. "All my work is wasted", wrote Petipa in his diary. The performance is streaming on you tube and the link is below. Petipa had cast Olga Preobrazhenskaya as the Rosebud, rather than the Tsar's favourite Matilda Kschessinskaya. The cast also included Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Fokine among the soloists and a group of students as the butterflies, including Vaslav Nijinsky. It is thought that the the Tsar was displeased by the snub of his favourite ballerina. Nikolai Sergeyev brought the notated score out of Russia after the revolution and it now survives in the Harvard University Library. The ballet has been reconstructed by Vassily Medvedev and most of the boys are students of Anton Lukovkin, formerly of the Mariinsky Ballet and the English National Ballet. There is a strong 'Bolshoi' tradition in Kazakhstan, with Spartacus a mainstay of the repertoire. Since her appointment as Director both of the Astana Ballet and the Kazakh National Academy, Altynai Asylmuratova has been attempting to introduce more of the Mariinsky/Vaganova style to her company and school. You can judge for yourself how well she has succeeded. (It is not quite true to call it the world premiere, as it was performed once on 11 May 1919 for Riccardo Drigo's farewell benefit performance, revived by one of the original butterflies, who had also contributed to the notation - but it has not been seen since). Here is the story of the ballet, as set out in Nadine Meisner's biography of Petipa: The curtain rises on a darkened stage, where all nature is asleep until dawn arrives and a daisy - a special part for Pavlova - appears along with bell-shaped flowers who sway their heads and wake up the other flowers. They shake the dewdrops from their leaves and a morning breeze flurries through them. Small butterflies pursue the violets, but it is a handsome 'sphinx butterfly' (Mikhail Fokine) which attracts the flowers and they vie for his attention. At some point an old butterfly, played by Pavel Gerdt, chases after Pavlova's daisy. A rosebud (Preobrazhenskaya) emerges from the crowd of roses and the sphinx butterfly chooses her; they leave together after a pas de deux and various group sequences. A bold nasturtium - danced by Vera Trefilova - enters, carrying a leaf which serves as a parasol. She dances and flirts with her butterfly-admirers. The other flowers tell her about the rose and they decide to play a trick on her. The second scene shows a different part of the garden, where the rose, now blossomed, and the butterfly are dancing. The nasturtium enters, determined to win over the butterfly - and succeeds, despite the rose's desperate attempts to keep him. There follows a triumphant dance for the other flowers, the rose has disappeared and the nasturtium and the butterfly can be seen afar, arm in arm. A storm darkens the sky, bringing lightning and a downpour. The flowers revel in the freshness of the rain, but the butterflies seek shelter. Calm returns and the rose appears, faded and weeping, followed by marigolds [the french word for marigold also means worry] and thistles. She asks the Queen of the Gardens, an aristocratic lily, to help bring back her inconstant lover. The Queen causes the rose to be transformed back into a rosebud; other characters, including the nasturtium and the butterfly, arrive in time to see the transformation and dance a pas d'ensemble. Th sphinx is reignited and pushing away the nasturtium he begs the rose's forgiveness. After playing hard-to-get, she eventually falls into his arms. Finally comes the apotheosis of a setting sun, visible through a fine drizzle, which delights the flowers and overpowers the butterflies. Мировая премьера балета Р. Дриго «Роман бутона розы и мотылька»

Lauren Cuthbertson has been discussing this topic on You and Yours (Radio 4) - Monday, 1 November edition - with Tayo Popoola, an English musician They concluded that it is not about pricing, but about awareness.