David

My first reaction was that allow the entire programme to go up hours before the official press conference, particularly since it is being widely shared across social media, was breathtakingly incompetent. Now I'm thinking that perhaps it shows a more relaxed approach. If so, I welcome it. After all, this is supposed to be an age of transparency.

Worrying if true coz I had pencilled in the Mariinsky. I have been trying to check it out but without success. Which opera is extending through August please?

Yes I had the same email this am. Last in the field as usual. The new RB Swan Lake has been listed by other retailers for quite a while. I ordered my copy from Amazon over a month ago - and at a much cheaper price then the ROH Shop is offering.

For crying out loud - it's absolutely ridiculous that we're all trying to work out how to get access to basic information on this abominable new site. For God's Sake ROH, scrap it and revert to the old site. You actually had got it right there!!!!

Like others I browse from time to time but my daily focus is on the other forums. The Links Forum is an extraordinary service and, as far as I can tell, unique but it must place great demands on those who provide it and who I'm sure already live busy lives. I'm sure many of us would be sad to see it go but I for one would understand if the decision is to discontinue it. We can only be grateful to those who have sustained it 24/7 for so long.

I admire the subtle way you have left it to us all to draw the obvious comparison. Nice one!

www.bbc.co.uk/events/r3j38g/by/date/2019/09/14

So the striving for excellence as the ultimate goal is no longer relevant. That should ensure longevity for the philistines serving on the Arts Council! But how should we measure their relevance now since excellence in the job is not longer the test?

I also booked using the Victor Hochhauser priority list - the trick was not to get caught up in the ROH web site but keep reverting to the VH page. A real joy to make a RB booking on-line so easily after all the frustration and hassle with the new web page. Just like the good old days!

I see that Liam Scarlett's Swan Lake is to be released by Opus Arte on 26th April: https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8610077--tchaikovsky-swan-lake https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8610078--tchaikovsky-swan-lake

It's not as if their arts output is important compared with all the exciting new things they're doing - the cafe, the web page re-design, the marketing strategy and so on. We must be reasonable. They have to concentrate on the essentials, not fiddling announcements about operas & ballets and things!

Thank you Stevie. I have cancelled my previous blu-ray order and re-ordered using the discount code and saved myself £5!!! Nice one! I think the offer is for today only.

I agree with Geoff and Mary above. Any other organisation that at a time of financial stringency devoted resources to activities unrelated to its primary function and embarked on marketing strategies designed to alienate its key client base would be deemed unfit for purpose. This at a time when other Arts companies including our struggling ballet companies are desperately underfunded and working so hard to maintain their clent base.The question has been raised elsewhere whether an organisation that relies entirely on buying in performers for each individual event can truly be called an opera company; on the other side of the House the Royal Ballet is firing on all cylinders at present but how long can that continue under an umbrella management that clearly lacks understanding of basic management skills and has become reliant on incompetent external consultants for whom the Arts objectives are subservient to other ill-conceived considerations.

Presumably we shall know all soon. I wonder if anyone knows/feels able to say the date of the press conference when the 2019/20 season is to be announced. I think it was on the 20th March last year so I assume the date of this year's announcement is already in the public domain and that it will be some time this month?

My memories of Margot Fonteyn are centred around what we are now used to calling her musicality - the way she seemed to step into the music, inhabit it. and make it her own. I have often wondered how much of that she gained from Constant Lambert. I was very young and I suppose pretty impressionable - but I was not alone. When in later years I talked to men and women who, more ofter than I had seen her dance, tears would come into their eyes as they remembered. We are a diminishing band but those of us who saw her on stage do not forget. Like Gigli's farewell performance at the Royal Albert Hall, Vivian Leigh playing the 2 Cleopatras with Olivier at the St James Theatre, even Donald Wolfit hamming it up as Lear, these early memories are special and I have gained many others over the years. But none are so poignant as my memories of Margot Fonteyn!

In the past his productions have been accompanied by masses of obscure verbiage that seem to have no relevance to his choreography. Now he seems to be going to the other extreme. I've always taken the view that the language of ballet is movement and that explanation should not be necessary. However, as has been made clear on another thread, cast lists ARE important and their absence is insulting, particularly to the dancers concerned.

Not really I'm afraid. Since I cancelled my Friends membership a couple of months back I have been deluged with emails, trying to get me to buy tickets, visit and generally spend money. Ironic really when you think that the reason I severed my connection with them after over 50yrs as a regular was the growing non-availability of tickets to Friends and that I no longer felt they wanted me there! Fortunately there are many other exciting alternatives.

Both DVD and blu-ray will be released on 1st Feb

Did anyone else catch Stephen McRae in the first episode of "The Sound of Movie Musicals" with Neil Brand - demonstrating Frd Astaire's style of dancing? Boy, can Stephen McRae tap!

It's from the third para down of his review of the year entitled: Time for a bloodbath at the Coliseum.

The way in which Stefan Herheim subverts Queen of Spades in his production to focus on Tchaikovsky himself and his sexuality is a good example of what I find so unacceptable in recent Royal Opera productions. I know it has received some good reviews from critics on the continent but I care too much for the work to see it so abused. I am curious though - we know programmes are organised years in advance. Is this I wonder a dying gasp from the previous regime or an example of what we can expect from Kasper Holten's successor?

A masterly exposition that expresses what many of us are feeling and have been trying to say. Thank you Floss.

I agree - but even a short run as a celebration of new choreography across the country would be good,

If Mr O'Hare is still planning to build the 20/21 season around new commissions (tho I haven't heard him repeat the pledge recently) there is virtally nothing that will draw me. There was a time when I would have invested if only out of my lifelong commitment to the ROH but the present management have destroyed that. Much of the more exciting new work over the past decade has been undertaken by other companies and their involvement would interest me. Perhaps he should widen his brief for the 20/21 season to embrace new works across the country along the lines of his excellent MacMillan initiative - and their companies of course!

Yes it has to be something very very special to get me over to the Barbican these days. I still spend time on the South Bank tho - and am part. pleased to have got a couple of tickets for Cate Blanchett and George Benjamin's A Team at the Dorfman!