Scheherezade

I don’t think that anyone who saw those early Osipova/Vasiliev Don Qs will ever forget them. Theirs was the first Don Q that my daughter had seen and she remains convinced that she will be eternally disappointed with all subsequent performances. Mixed reactions to the Saturday lunchtime Mercedes ... I have felt somewhat lukewarm to each Mercedes that I have seen this time round and, re-running the comparison theme, wonder to what extent that is down to the memory of Laura Morera’s firecracker performance in previous runs.

Well said Orlando Fraser, and quite right: the best interests of the charity and its beneficiaries should prevail over the pious virtue signalling of squeamish trustees.

Tbh, I’ve sat in a lot of places, including the ROH, that are more cramped, and the front row, of course, has masses of leg room. Obviously it helps if you’re not tall and I’m not.

They are fantastic. Worth a 3 hour wait and trawl? Definitely!

There were. But only 1 solitary ticket that I wanted (first three rows of the stalls at £20) amongst all of the very many Nye performances and the same problem that we so frequently come across when booking at the ROH - the tickets having already disappeared in the time it takes to click on the seat and then add it to the basket. I think the general rush was to hoover up whatever was left of those particular seats for that particular show, although no such problem with the rest of the season’s offerings or, indeed, for other tickets for that show.

Re the stressometer scale: I did National Theatre public booking yesterday with random place allocation from the waiting room, highly specific tickets in mind and the knowledge that there would be a massive website jam due to Michael Sheen’s upcoming Nye (Bevan). Placed at 1,651 in the queue, I exited the website a lengthy 3 hours and multiple refreshes later. Happy days, eh?

👍🎉👏 😲🙏🏻🤞

Thanks for your reviews @Sim and @AnneMarriott, they have validated my decision to give this one a miss. And those creatures in the middle photograph look more like mutants from a 1950s sci-fi flick than characters from Morris Dances.

I hope you do too, Mora.

Absolutely. And linked to Capybara’s quote below, this will hopefully add to more public interest and swell the audience numbers. Let’s hope so, yes.

Gasparini was just lovely, wasn’t she? And I also found Avis’ Don particularly touching last night. I totally agree. Mica Bradbury has had a very successful run: Kitri’s friend; gypsy queen; one half of the fandango couple.

The right people: those who enjoy the ballet enough to want to attend. And to pay a reasonable price to do so. On that premise, we could start with Friends, people on the general email list, anyone recorded as having bought tickets in the past, pensioners, past and present dance school attendees and, depending upon the production, school parties generally. The wrong people: other than an occasional offer (ie not like this season’s mass giveaway due to initial unrealistic pricing), those who are considered as deserving purely on account of their employment or their friendship with the staff. Inequitable distribution aside, people without a demonstrable interest in the arts who are given free, or largely free, tickets are also less likely to turn up if something they consider better or more enjoyable comes along.

They wouldn’t have any problem if they offered the tickets to the right people at the right price.

Yes, I caught the ushers asking people not to film on more than one occasion; the constant chattering was, to channel Grace Willows, enough to drive a saint to madness or (perhaps appropriately here) a king to his knees; and someone clattered their way through my part of the amphitheatre noisily and at length during the quietest part of the dream sequence. Oh, and after the interval I noticed large numbers of attendees at the amphitheatre bar making their way back to their seats with full or barely drunk glasses, although I can’t say whether or not they were allowed to take them in or had to knock back the contents before re entering. This is not an exclusive list. These are just some of the examples of the general level of behaviour.

I don’t think it’s that, Candleque, and I’m all in favour of people expressing their appreciation which, I think, makes all of us feel good, but when, in the manner of the standard TV audience audience who, as we know, are told when to yell and clap, you get the same crescendo of whoops and screams for the unexceptional as for the exceptional, it does tend to diminish the impact of the exceptional, not to mention the effect that it may have on the dancers’ concentration. My daughter is a natural whooper. She also suffers from misophonia, which she usually manages to control, but the level and frequency of the noise, often at wholly inappropriate times, was so bad that she almost had to get up and leave.

By way of a sideways comment, the upstairs cloakroom was blissfully empty as most of the audience crammed together in a massive queue for the one at the side of the downstairs cafe, and the same could be said, to some extent, for the loos.

I do think that it must be nice for the cast to experience spontaneous vocal appreciation. To a point. But from where I was sitting I couldn’t hear the orchestra, the screaming, whooping and clapping was so loud. Hopefully the dancers still could.

I do agree with Silke’s comments and having read all the other posts I wondered whether it was just me and my daughter feeling a little underwhelmed by the performance and irritated by the people around us. Coincidentally we were sitting in very close proximity to Silke, half way up the amphitheatre, so I wondered also about the effect of positioning in the auditorium and whether it might have felt more immediate and exhilarating in SCS. It may, however, have been that our expectations were too high and that Friday’s superlative performance by Kaneko and Bracewell was too fresh in the mind.

Well if Bracewell can borrow Nureyev’s arabesque I don’t see why they can’t borrow Steptoe’s undies …

Well I’m going to the performance but I haven’t been told anything. But then I am never informed about any of the 25% discounts for the expensive seats (that I couldn’t afford anyway) so nothing new there.

Briefly back to Friday, belated due to a wedding this weekend, but I just couldn't let it go without saying how much I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this cast! This was surely the adorable couple that no-one could help rooting for, with Bracewell the lovable, romantic boy next door that every mother wants for her daughter, the boy that you just know will be there for her come what may, and Kaneko the beautiful, open-hearted girl of his dreams. As to the dancing: a dashing, characterful, heart-warming display from Bracewell, and as for Kaneko - just wow! And the rest of the cast was fantastic, too, every one of them, with a special shout out for the way that James Hay's Gamache minced, bluffed and beckoned his conniving way around all three acts, not forgetting the curtain calls, to the arrogant swagger of Leo Dixon's 'God's gift' Espada, Ashley Dean's cute-as-a-button Amour, and to Hanna Park for pulling off those Italian fouettes with such aplomb this time round.

I think we all loved Harris Beattie. I had to check who he was in the interval too. Just lovely to watch.

Having read your post, Sebastian, I have just checked my e-tickets for 7 November that arrived in my email account at 7.04 this morning, and they are also now showing as £150. Curiouser and curiouser …

I find myself almost wishing train problems upon you, LinMM.

Well, I saw this fabulous programme tonight and all I can say is if Federico Bonelli was laying out his stall, I for one will certainly be buying again. Three very different pieces, all in the neo-classical idiom, all of them beautifully danced, to wonderful music, with costumes that flattered the dancers instead of the greige vest and knickers combos generally favoured by the RB. So, a lyrical start to the evening with Ben Ella’s charming Joie de Vivre, and if it brought to mind Dances at a Gathering, I am certainly not complaining, followed by Hans Van Manen’s exquisite masterpiece, Adagio Hammerklavier as the main course, with the speed, pace and exhilaration of Tiler Peck’s Intimate Pages bringing the evening to an sparkling close. As Bruce Wall said earlier, may we have many more such evenings, we do indeed need them here!