cavycapers

One does have to wonder why some of the audience are there. There was a lady I sat next to at the ROH, done up to the nines, who kept muttering "get on with it" whilst Romeo and juliet were dying. I think she was keen to get back to the bar. I wouldn't have minded but it was Acosta/Rojo!

For all the problems I have with Misty Copeland's autobiography, I was still amazed at her reporting that when she did what she calls the "white" ballets, Swan Lake, La Bayadere, and Giselle, etc, whilst all the dancers used white powder to look ethereal, she had to apply an ivory base foundation al over her face and arms to fit in. And that wasn't all that long ago.

I love the costumes of the ENB's R and J, the subtle greens and dusty pinks, and the beautiful tableau they create at the back of the stage during R and J's pas de deux, like some old master painting. However, I think it's odd that Romeo and Paris are dressed so similarly. From a distance, particularly when the dancers are of similar build, like Max and Guilleme they look very similar. The group of people I was talking to were confused about whom they were watching in the third act, in the wedding dance and in the tomb.

Well, if we are going to be pedantic about this, I was thinking about the whole issue because the last time I visited the ROH, looking at the audience milling about and in the bars, etc, I saw only one black person, and if the audience capacity of the ROH is 2,200+, then technically, as a percentage, this doesn't represent the ethnic make up of the UK. On the other issues in this thread, I think Eric Underwood being interviewed by the Guardian, in 2013, probably expresses better what I was fumbling to say. "Right from the start of my career, I've noticed a lack of ethnic people in ballet. In a corps de ballet, especially for women, the idea is to be identical: you're trying to move the same and not call attention to yourself. For someone who isn't white, that's difficult. You're left with a choice: you have to either become so great a dancer that you're not left in a chorus or a line, or embrace your beauty and hope others do, too – seeing it as beautiful, even if the symmetry is disturbed."

Well done Lauretta Somerscales, a lovely debut as Juliet, and we'll done Max Westwell, I was very moved by his Romeo. I believe he was also not due to dance tonight, so extra well done! I am growing to like this production more and more, particularly act three, which is divine. I have to mention Cesar Coralles again, as Mercutio. A wonderful dancer and fine actor, he steals every scene he is in. And only nineteen! A major talent of the future I think!

Do you know what, swissballetfan, I should be insulted that you found the intention of my post to be distasteful, but I can't be bothered. I suspect you would have found some problem with whatever I said. It's one of those subjects that you are damned if you mention it and damned if you don't. So I shall have to continue to wonder on my own why the audience at the ROH is so predominantly white.

Yep, Alison, I'm thinking if I can travel to London, Birmingham etc, and I frequently do, on my meager income, then they can! I don't know how they have the cheek not to go to Bristol to review someone of the importance of Alina C doing Juliet. Maybe there will be something in the Sundays.

Yes, that's true. Obviously, we have become very comfortable with black male principals at the RB for some time, with the lovely Carlos Acosta. I think I am commending Tamara Rojo's vision in appointing black ballerinas, and again, I may well be wrong (I often am) but I am struggling to think of a time when I have seen a black female dancer in the RB.

Well done, Tamara Rojo, every time I see the ENB, there are more black dancers. How refreshing. It's particularly lovely to see Precious Adams in the corps. I do feel bit sorry for her though, as you know that in a line of white swans, many eyes will be watching the black one, but fortunately she has no worries on that score. Long, elegant limbs. I hope that by the end of this decade we might see a black ballerina in a major classical role, until then, come on RB show some cojones, like Ms Rojo.

Shocking. What does a return train ticket and a night at the Premier Inn, when they have loads of notice, booked well in advance cost? Very little.

I am seeing four different casts in Bristol, so I shall try try try to like this production. I like the little vignettes though, particularly the one where Juliet is trying to decide between the dagger and poison, and is tossed about between the dead Tybalt and Mercutio. No reviews that I can see in the Nationals? Only a couple of reviews in local papers. Seems strange. I'm not sure that it was just the production that left me feeling a lack of passion between R and J. Alina was passionate for the both of them, but as Mummykool said, although a lovely dancer and visually a perfect Romeo, Isaac Hernandez had one expression. Maybe this production gives Mercutio more of an opportunity to display his character than Romeo, but Isaac reminded me of my sixteen year old cousin, reticent and unsure, nothing to incite the level of passion that the lovely Juliet displayed.

Yes, the first two acts are quite strange. One feels one has wandered into a comedy by mistake. Far too many cod piece jokes and jolly japes. There is no light and shade in these acts, no building of tension, so that when the darkness (literally in some places) of the third act comes, it is too huge a contrast. Although I don't think I breathed through any of that last act. Alina is the only ballerina I have her seen where I don't notice she is dancing en pointe, it is such a natural part of her. Sell your granny, put your children up chimneys to get to see her only other performance as Juliet this run, Manchester I think?

Alina was divine. She is in a whole other stratosphere. I think there might have been someone called Romeo there as well. I saw very little to move me in the relationship of R and J, though, unfortunately. The most moving moment of the whole night was the pas de deux between Romeo and Benvolio, on learning of Juliet's death. That made me cry.

Woohoo, I am beyond excited at the prospect of seeing Alina Cojacaru as Juliet tomorrow, at the Bristol Hippodrome. I shall also be very interested to see Lauretta Somerscales on Friday.

Woohoo, thank you so much for mentioning this. I would never have found it otherwise. Have booked ticket for the Sunday!

I wonder if the reason Act 1 is not as convincing as Act 2 is because Zakharova too "stands out like a pumpkin in a field of melons". Everything about her, including her lovely profile, screams aristocrat, not peasant. There was no way one could imagine her as being amongst her friends. But it is also this very reason that makes her so exquisite in Act 2. I saw her leave the stage door one night at the ROH. There was no scurrying out in old tracky bottoms. It was like seeing an old Hollywood film star. We waited ages, and then she appeared, hair and make up perfect, and a beautiful coat, very fitted like a corset, then swirling out onto great big skirt, with many points on it, the coat equivalent of a tutu! So glamorous!

That was Giselle in the wobbly tree thing was it? and don't get me started on Giselle's mother, who looked younger than Giselle under that terrible wig and make up, and seemed more concerned with straightening out her daughter's skirt than about the fact that she was dead. But you're right, Mary, despite all this it was indeed wonderful. And I loved Zakharova all the more for her slip and the courage she showed going on. I've always found her rather icy before.

It looked like a bad fall. I think it took her some time to recover. She is a goddess though. Both the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky make me laugh though. Their dancing is so sophisticated, and yet the devices they use and their props departments are those of an amateur production. Although the trapdoor device worked beautifully when the couple finally parted, I thought Giselle's appearance out of it was rather comical. Look out behind you! What with breaking branches of flowers and people swaying about in trees and a huge Christmas lights budget to spend at the Range and stuffed hawks glued to arms and Giselle's great big bobbly necklace, I was constantly on the edge of my seat as to what would malfunction next. I'm not sure any of it was helped by the rather overzealous use of huge close ups, especially of poor old Ekaterina Shipulina trying to twitch the sweat off her face. But strip all that away, and Zakharova and Polunin were divine beings from another planet!

Oh yes, Floss, you're right of course! Necrophilia not necromancy. Teehee. Some interesting thought 're Fonteyn and Nureyev too.

"In particular she played the morning bedroom scene as pure sorrow, letting her body fall into almost total passivity foreshadowing the tomb scene to come. This worked well though I think there needs to be perhaps more of a mixture of emotions here( of ecstatic joy turning to despair when she realises Romeo has to leave). Her scene with Paris when she gives in to her parents was truly disturbing( I can't understand why people on the thread 'like' Paris! He is basically prepared to force Juliet if she won't have him- I think we are meant to understand that he is threatenng her physically in this scene)" This is very interesting. The bedroom morning pas de deux is my favourite scene, but I don't think it should be played as all despairing. The music has moments of soaring hope as well as despair. My favourite portrayal of this scene is by Allesandra Ferri and Wayne Eagling from 1984, available on You Tube, in which she jumps up at him like a puppy near the end and kisses him all over his face, and he shakes her not to be foolish. I'm not sure she should be too passive at this point, they are young and alive and have jus spent their first night together. It should contrast highly with the tomb scene and the poignancy of Romeo trying to shape her body into the same poses. (Althouh it always makes me wonder, if R and J are representing having sex in the morning pas de deux, does that make the tomb scene necromancy? Teehee). Which Paris was it that you saw, Mary? I think some are played as much crueller than others. Certainly, Ryoichi Hirano played him (beautifully) as courteous but uncomprehending. And I have always had the impression that any reluctance Juliet shows towards him is from shyness not repulsion. It is only after meeting Romeo that her feelings change. And on this note, can anyone tell me please where to find the full cast list for each perf? Looked everywhere on ROH website.

I cannot but always help worry about how creepy Juliet' s bedroom is for a 13 year old. And those horrible pillows with the ridges on. Where are the One Direction posters?

On a lighter note, were I Juliet, I'd have chosen Gary Avis every time, that's allowed isn't it - cousins? Teehee. Or the divine Ryoichi Hirano; Juliet's duos with Paris are my favourite parts of the show. I never understand why Paris has to die either, what crime has he committed apart from the wearing of those yellow tights, which lets face it are criminal? Actually, it's best that they all end up dead. Juliet would have got pregnant that first night, as is the way with star-crossed lovers, they would have had to go and live in a grotty apartment in the suburbs of Rome, Juliet would have missed her pretty frocks and her daddy, she would have put on a stone with each baby, Romeo wouldn't have been able to lift her anymore in the pas de deux, would have complained she was spending too much time with nursie, and would have spent his time in the village square dancing with the harlots, and Juliet would have been sat at home thinking, "Why didn't I marry Paris"....

Thank you.

Oh,oh, I wish I could see the BRB's SWAN LAKE in Birmingham. When I went up for Sylvia in the summer I was blown away by Birmingham's regeneration (and the BRB, as usual!) Unfortunately I have blown all my pennies on 3 RB R and Js and 3 ENB R and Js, I always go a bit bonkers around R and J time!, but I might try to get to BRB SWAN LAKR at Sadlers Wells. Janet, I know it's hard to call, but as I shall only have the pennies for one performance, which cast would you recommend?

The best bit for me (as always with this version) was the curtain up on Act 4 with a stage deeply filled with dry ice and and a hint of swan beneath When I first saw the BRB's Swan Lake, I was sitting at the front of the stalls, so had no idea there where swans beneath that dry ice u til they rose up. Marvellous!