cavycapers

Oo I think I've called them the wrong thing. They're the St Petersburg Classic Ballet.

I saw the St Petersburg Theatre Ballet's Nutcracker tonight, in Bath. Surprisingly, the little orchestra sounded very good to me, and I thought the sets and costumes were well above the usual standard for one of these touring companies. However.... The programme promised "outstanding soloists whose exquisite dancing will take your breath away". Whilst I thought the general standard of dancing was good, the only things that took my breath away were the liberties taken with the production. I have no problems when a touring company has to make adaptations because they don't have enough men, or because the stage is very small, but the Arabian dance was presented as a solo with one female dancer wafting her scarves around the stage, but most surprisingly of all was the decision to stage the grand pas de deux for the Sugarplum Fairy and her prince with five princes, and using at least two of these for each lift. Astonishing! I can only imagine that they didn't have a capable male soloist. I seriously thought I was watching the Rose Adagio at times, with the SPF being handed from man to man. And I have seen much less professional companies pull this off with shoulder lifts and all. An attempt would have been good.

Still loads of lovely tickets left. Very strange. Thought they would all have gone by now, but maybe people aren't looking anymore as its been sold out except for the odd single ticket for so long. D'you know Alison, I have never, ever in all my time of booking tickets, seen these £22 tickets in row C of the balcony, and I can only think that its because by the the time that general booking opens, they have all gone to friends.

For its many faults, the ROH booking system does have one fantastic benefit, that they allow you to resell your ticket for a minimal fee, and I have had to do this quite a few times, and they always sell and a refund comes. I don't know any other theatre or cinema that allows you to do this. So, anyway, that enabled me to buy two seats together for one of the Osipovas last night, which is what I hoped to get in the first place, and I can resell the original single ticket I got.

Oh no, don't rain on my parade I guess they normally go before I ever get to see them. Anyway, I wonder what all these tickets released are? They same to be the same groupings each performance.

Hello peeps, Go over to the Tickets thread for a whole bunch of tickets just appeared on the ROH website for Giselle, some even for Osipova, and some seem to be below normal price. I just got two balcony seated tickets for £22 each!

I am always looking for ballet books in kindle editions, and one has become available recently, the autobiography of Janet Sassoon, called 'Reverence'. Very interesting, but I am now 3/4 of the way through and she is getting on my nerves, because she was obviously a bit of a daddy's princess and everything is always 'marvellous', but well worth reading otherwise.

Does anyone know the cast list for BRB Romeo and Juliet end of Feb? I am seeing performances on the Thursday and Friday nights, and would love to know whom I am going to see

If I am wrong in what I am saying, please find a nicer way of refuting it than saying what I am saying is 'strange'. That's not very polite.

I'm particularly excited to see the mightily explosive Cesar Corrales again. A massive star for the future. Though, might there be a danger of the RB snatching him at this exciting time in his career? or do they tend to wait until the ENB promote him to principal first, if they want him, such as happened with Vadim Muntagirov? Does anyone know how it usually works? If they were to get him now, would he remain soloist at the RB, in a bigger pond of potential principals? Is it better to be a big fish in the smaller pond at the ENB?

What a lovely picture of Ksenia! She has long been a personal fave of mine. Can't wait for Saturday. There's such a buzz about the ENB at the moment.

Thanks nickb, for letting me know they're in Bath, I would have missed that otherwise. Swan Lake and Nutcracker, will probably give both a go, although to be honest, watching another Nutcracker at the end of January feels like that last little bit of Christmas cake that has somehow lost its appeal! However, their blurb says that their performances "have an air of magic and are presented by outstanding soloists whose exquisite dancing will take your breath away". I'd better take oxygen then, especially as I'm in the balcony! It's odd though, as I've never heard the Royal Ballet make such a claim. They're probably just not as good as the SPCB

I have checked and the company I saw was in June 2010 and it was The St Petersburg Ballet Theatre.....Which coincidently was also in Bath Theatre Royal.

Run nickwellings, whilst there's still time..... Now, I really must leave the poor old RBS alone! Izvinite.

The other thing that made me laugh with the RSB was that I went into a little shop next to the Bristol Hippodrome when I came out, before I got the bus home, a pile of Russian ballet dancers came in through the door, and bought beer, vodka and fags! Whilst I have no problem with smoking or drinking, they're not saints, I would have thought that from a PR point of viewz it might have been better if they'd gone to a shop a couple of streets away. Boozy swans/Wilis!

I did have a quick check, as I have a list of all performances seen, and I thought it was them. I'll have another look.

I saw the St Petersburg Classic Ballet a couple of years ago and seem to remember them as good. They were at the much smaller Malvern Theatre, which suited their level of production well. The tickets were suitably priced in the £20-30 mien. When I saw the RUSSIAN STATE BALLET recently, although they had a bigger troupe, I thought the overall level of dancing and production was pretty similar to the SPCB, and therefore continue to wonder why they are chosen every year to play the much more important Bristol Hippodrome, at much higher prices, in fact the same as had been recently charged for the ENB's wonderful R and J. So I still don't understand why one is in the provincial theatres of places like Malvern, and one is playing in a major regional theatre, charging the same price as when the ENB came. Maybe it's because they are a larger troupe and have their own orchestra, but many of the troupe were walk on parts, and the orchestra was small and quite comical in parts. Maybe we can forgive the sparseness of the stage, if that was a design choice, but overall, their professionalism was no way on par with the ENB, and yet ticket prices were the same. If you go to the Bristol Hippodrome, you expect a certain level of professionalism, and whilst some of the principals of th RSB were very good, thisy should either be at a lower price, or they should be in theatres like Malvern. I guess, maybe if it was the only ballet you ever saw, you might be thrilled, but if you had bought tickets for them having seen the ENB there previously, you would have expected the same wonderful quality, and would have been disappointed.

I see what you mean about the prices. It's when you go in to the site that you're offered a Band A plus, whatever that is, at £58 plus £4 transaction fee. I think that's what I was thinking of.

To many of us, Darcey is a goddess in the world of ballet, and thus should have total control over what is included in the programmes she presents, but to the majority of television producers, she is maybe just the go to person when there is a programme about ballet, as they know her from 'Strictly', so maybe don't allow her the kind of command she deserves over the editorial content of the programmes she presents? In my experience, it is only the'greats' of television who are allowed that final privilege, to refuse to do what they are asked. She will probably be more canny next time!

I think my problem with this company is their coming to the Bristol Hippodrome in particular, once a year in January for four nights, and commanding tickets in a £30 to £60 price bracket, which compares to the same prices for the ENB when they come in the Autumn. Whilst I do admire what they do, travelling the provinces, I feel they would be better suited to a smaller theatre, such as the Bath Theatre Royal, the Brewhouse in Taunton or the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil, for instance, with tickets in the more reasonable £20-30 bracket. The Bristol Hippodrome is a major theatre in the area, and therefore you go there with expectations of the productions being of a very professional level. Their main diet is pre or post west end shows, and as such, I would trust them that any ballet staged there would be on a par with this. I suspect that those who paid £60 for their ticket might feel it was overpriced for what they got, especially if they had recently paid the same to see the ENB's wonderful Romeo and Juliet. I always get the feeling that this may be an example of 'The Emperor's New Clothes', probably because they are of that exhaulted ilke, a Russian ballet company! However, if they can fill the theatre with the RBS, maybe they have a point, but I hate to think of people going to see this and thinking they have seen the pinnacle of classical ballet.

She may have been sold the idea that it might be fun to film a funny little pose in each location, to maybe be included, or not, somewhere in the programme, and might have gone along with it as it was what the director wanted. Perhaps she didn't want to appear to be being a Prima Donna about it so went along with it. Or it might have been having a bit of fun at the end of a shoot, which she'd never imagined would get used in the actual programme. And even if she did hate what they had done with the material at the end, which she will only have got to see as a fait accompli, when the programme was all put together, she wouldn't have had enough editorial sway to ask for it to be removed, as being embarrassing and in no way representative of the programme that had gone before, if everyone else thought it was great. As I said, her contract will probably have given her some editorial control over her sections, the interviews, etc, but non over the construction of the final look of the programme.

Thanks Janet. I enjoyed the Big Ballet programmes, but you're right, it's another example of how a producer sells an idea that will be acceptable to the dept head and the channel controller, and then manipulates the footage to conform to that idea, irrespective of what actually happened during the filming, and that the contributors often get stitched up along the way to achieve this. The idea will have been undoubtedly sold as an amusing and lighthearted look at larger women learning ballet. But when the programme threw up a more serious side, which could have changed the whole tone of the programme, these will not have been used in the editing of the programme, as showing the 'funny' bits, the things that went wrong and the bitchy comments of some of the interviewees, ultimately make for what the BBC imagines will be a more watchable programme for their audience, in preference to the bits that showed how important it was to the dancers and any more poignant and thoughtful material. And it's not always the producer's/director's fault. They too are under pressure to get their next commission which will have depended on how well received their last programme was. The zeitgeist I suppose. Sigh,

Did anyone else see the New Year's Day concert from Vienna?! Two sections this year with the Vienna State Ballet. How lovely they are too, amazing costumes every year. But, but, they scare me silly. Are they really dancing on pointe or in thin shoes on carpet and gravel?!! Every year, I fear for injuries. Darcey's Ballet Heroes was lovely, I thought. There was genuine affection for her from many of the interviewees and therefore it made for much more interesting interviews. I think that there may be a false impression of how much influence Darcey will have had on the programme, however. She will have been consulted as to whom she wanted included, and the content of the interviews, and maybe the commentary, but ultimately it is the director/producer who will have had the final influence on the depth of ballet knowledge in the programme. The horrible capering about at the end will have most likely have been something Darcey will have been asked to do! It is the false impression of editors and producers that the viewing public find this kind of thing amusing, that means that many programmes and films now use whacky outtakes at the end. The two rising stars used in the progamme also gave me the impression of having been shoehorned in at the end. From working over twenty years as an editor at the BBC, i am sure that although Darcey will have been invited in at the end to see the finished programme, the programme will have been then subject to scrutiny by the head of documentaries and possibly even the controller of BBC2, and she will have been allowed only to make very nominal changes. For all we know, Darcey may have been stitched up like a kipper, and would have done things very differently herself. So I think we might give poor old Darcey a break! I think we should be very grateful for any programmes about ballet at all. Television companies are so set now on churning out what they have been found to be a winning format, or programmes with the same old ,'popular' presenters. Maybe it is even possible that if we didn't have Darcey, we would have no mainstream ballet programmes at all. At least we have her, we could be stuck with the ubiquitous Lucy Worsley capering about! I remember a friend who was a producer at the BBC constantly getting her idea for a programme about the WI turned down with the comment that there wasn't enough interest.

I sooo wish I could see Northern Ballet. I just wish I could afford the train fares from down south.

I agree that they should be applauded for bringing ballet to the provinces. I always have great admiration for instance for companies like the Vienna Festival Ballet who tour tirelessly, but the difference between them and the RSB is that they are obviously trying their very best. I will go to watch any level of ballet so long as I feel that they love and appreciate what they're doing. I have seen the RSB recently, and what upset me so much was that I paid a lot for a ticket at the Hippodrome, but was sat high enough up to see the men of the corps talking and laughing, trying to push each other over and thus missing their cues. This is what I find unforgivable, especially as the principals were very good, and were obviously trying their best. My problem is that the tickets are the same price as the ENB when they come in the Autumn, which implies to a potential audience that the production will be of the same level, which it clearly isn't. Aside from the dancing, the backdrops are very simple, the lighting was as atmospheric as my local B and Q, and there were so many markings on the stage, it looked like an airport runway. It just surprises me that they are always at the very large Hippodrome, whilst the BRB, for instance, are at the much smaller Cheltenham Everyman when they come every Spring. I wonder if it's the fact that they are a Russian company that impresses those who know little about ballet. Whilst I am glad that they inspired some to a love of ballet, I also fear that they may have put off an equal number of people!