Scheherezade

I am looking for 1 SCS or Balcony D standing for Wednesday 20 March.

If anyone has a spare, please DM.

Many thanks.

I couldn't be there tonight - although thankfully I was there on the 2nd - so thank you so much for uploading the curtain call and speeches, Lady Emily. It is all much too soon!

17 minutes ago, LinMM said:

Very disappointed to see nothing at all still about last nights performance with Magri and Corrales. 
Now I know Nunez and Muntagirov can be in a league of their own sometimes but was it that uninspiring 

last night 🫣🤔
 

Or was everybody at the Wells? 

I was just about to ask: Anybody?

1 hour ago, Sim said:

He seems to be becoming quite the character dancer.   

And many years ahead of him so lucky us. 

7 hours ago, alison said:

Also, according to the insight evening which I'm finally catching up with, black was the most expensive dye

Well, who knew? I certainly didn’t. 

4 hours ago, LinMM said:

I was wondering whether the Peacock Theatre could have been suitable for Sarasota if planned well enough in advance. 

It suits The Trocks very well. And the sightlines are good pretty much everywhere. 

2 hours ago, LinMM said:

will definitely be looking forward to a dark brooding Cesar in The Winters Tale!! 

Me too!

I came round to Calvin’s Des Grieux more slowly than others and, like JohnS, I liked Act 3 best, largely, I’d say, because I felt more of his personality came through, something that was missing for me in the earlier acts. 
 

I agree with Sim on his Act 3 partnering. Those double twists and the last minute catches as Melissa plunged head first to the ground were breathtaking and I felt that his hesitation and confusion on setting foot on Louisiana soil was perfectly judged, ditto the alarm and initial lack of comprehension as to what to do next on killing the gaoler. Here, as in the earlier acts, Melissa’s Manon was the primary moving force, which felt very much as it should be since her magnificent Manon was the author of her own destiny from her first steps down from the carriage in Act 1 to her defiant tussle with the gaoler in Act 3. More puppeteer than puppet, hers was a Manon who knew her worth, her power and what she wanted and who was prepared to do whatever it took to get it. A blazing independent spirit who wasn’t prepared to give up until her very last breath. 
 

This was James Hay’s first Lescaut for me and what a Lescaut! It was on another level and without doubt worth my ticket price - and the price of a far more expensive ticket - alone. 
 

And, yes, I was also impressed by Lukas BB’s gaoler. He is showing himself to be a fine actor, something that is always welcome. 

5 hours ago, Richard LH said:

I thought @Scheherezade said that her friend DID miss Vadim and Fumi, but saw, and was wowed by, Alex and Frankie ....but I am now completely confused!

Richard LH, don’t be confused - not completely, not even a little bit - because you are absolutely right. Mind you, by that point I was confused too so it wasn’t just you. 

Yes. Such as social media following. 

9 minutes ago, Sim said:

She didn’t miss Vadim and Fumi, and wasn’t wowed by Alex and Frankie because she wasn’t there!  😂

Nooooooo!!!! I post no more ... 😮

5 hours ago, Sim said:

I think you mean Alex and Frankie...!! 

 

Thanks for picking that up, and that

will teach me to check what I’ve written before posting. I actually meant to say she had to miss Vadim and Fumi but was totally wowed by Alex and Frankie. 😅

I haven’t posted re Saturday evening’s Manon but wanted to say a big thank you to the fairy godmother that magicked up tickets for me and a friend who had to miss Vadim and Frankie through illness. 

I was so glad to have the chance to see one of Alex‘s last two performances and that he was dancing with Frankie - many happy memories of their other performances together - and it lived up to and surpassed all my expectations.

Alex always brings something different to his performances and Saturday was no exception. His Act 1 DG wasn’t going to be pushed around by Lescaut and his earlier Act 1 solos also showed someone who knew his own mind, something that he carried into Act 2 where, despite his dejection, it was always clear that he wasn’t going to give up on Manon or be pushed aside by the competition.

As with the other casts - and they have all been so good it is really hard to choose a favourite - the heartbreak grew to a devastating Act 3 climax and one that was propelled both by DG’s determination to bring Manon to safety and the wonderful chemistry and mutual trust shared by him and Frankie, whose Manon was utterly breathtaking.

The standing ovation from where I was standing was pretty much instantaneous - I had to move to an aisle to see any of the curtain calls - and I’d agree with the posters who suggested that it didn’t seem to be the response of a partisan fan crowd there to say their farewells.

So glad and yet so sad. I can’t believe I will never see Alex dance again at the RB or see him and Frankie dance together again. Too soon! Too soon by far!

I thought he was really starting to come into his own just before his last injury. Having always enjoyed him in the virtuoso roles, and following on from his performances in LWFC where for me he totally stole the show, it came as something of a surprise to me just how good his Siegfried was in the last SL run.  

Hi Jacky. If the ticket is still free, I would like it. Will PM. 

3 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Inger's style (from what I saw at Australian Ballet's gala programme and online from CND's performances) is really not my cup of tea. If it was part of a mixed bill it would be ok but not if it's the entire show. I'll see what our members' reviews, dance publications and newspaper reviews say...

I’d say it sounds very much the cup of tea of the newspaper reviewers. Less so mine. 

I never get the offers. I have always assumed that it’s because I don’t buy expensive tickets and it doesn’t bother me particularly because even the discounted prices are more than I would generally be prepared to pay but there could be that time, and I do feel that it really isn’t good enough to offer discounts to selected individuals only. They should be offered to all Friends and to everyone else who regularly buys tickets. They have our details, what’s the difficulty here?

1 hour ago, PeterS said:

Is the “Success” message that pops up when something is successfully added to your basket a new addition? 

Personally, I'd rather have a website that worked  without hiccups from the outset than one that told me what I already knew.

20 hours ago, jmhopton said:

The last performances we were at together was a wonderful mixed bill in 2019; Firebird, Month in Country and Symphony in C; amazing!

Wasn't that wonderful! And why can't we have more of the same/similar?

I have a lot of respect for what Tamara Rojo has achieved but honouring much loved retirees does seem a matter of common courtesy. 

1 hour ago, bridiem said:

 

Or, in my case at least, I'm going simply because it's NYCB and more in spite of rather than because of the programme. 

Me three. 

1 hour ago, PeterS said:

It’ll be terrific to see Zucchetti dance a substantial role again

Yes, he's someone else with a strong and appealing stage presence.

1 hour ago, Mary said:

The stress of booking day is also caused by not knowing what to 'go for ' first, with so much to book,  but it is starting to look as if it might not be worth spending precious first moments fossicking about with the Linbury performances trying to find a seat with a view, while the seats I want in the main house are getting snapped up!

 

I shall schedule a mindful deep breathing session before booking ........

 

Thus is so true! Far too much time wasted going from one date to another searching out seats that turn out to be unavailable and losing others in the process. 

39 minutes ago, JohnS said:

In the interests of balance I should say I very much enjoyed my Avanti Platinum Club free 1st class trip to London. Going mid week meant I could enjoy the catering. I was offered breakfast, coffee and lunch for the journey starting at 10:00 and getting into London before 1:30, a few minutes late. I said ‘no thanks’ to the breakfast but it certainly looked ok. Coffee and lunch were very welcome. I do think the Gold and Platinum deals have been rather good, particularly because they require no effort on my part - Avanti simply tell me I’ve done sufficient journeys to get the Gold or Platinum free return journey. I’ll look forward to my return leg on Wednesday. 

This does sound wonderfully civilised. Hoping your return leg is just as good. 

10 minutes ago, Nogoat said:

 

This type of 'corporate non-answer' is all too common nowadays, and it's really exasperating! 

 

In response to a perfectly reasonable request for an existing policy (fees for ticket returns) to change (waive said fees for ticket returns) to address an exceptional circumstance (lack of casting info at the time of ticket purchase), a bland restatement of the existing policy (waiving of fees is standard only for Patrons) is issued; there is no attempt to engage with the question itself and so provide an explanation as to why such a change cannot be accommodated. Grrr!

 

It's especially frustrating given the recent celebration of the Friends' 60th anniversary, with its copious praise of the importance of such Friends to the RB.

The disconnect between the supposed importance of Friends and the continued failure to provide casting information at the time of Friends' booking or mitigate its effect either means the RB really hasn't a clue about the motivation behind why people becoming Friends, or that they prioritise income over customer relations, in which case that very public, celebratory praise of Friends starts to sound a bit hollow. Either possibility is worrying.

 

In case anyone from the RB management or customer relations team reads this forum (and I'd like to think they do!), here's my view of why people become Friends, and why casting information *at the time of booking* is so vital.

 

There may well be folk who become Friends simply for the magazine, or access to a handful of rehearsals, or a 10% shop discount, or as a way to donate, or for the kudos - but I've yet to meet any.

The overwhelming majority become Friends because it allows them to reduce uncertainty around (and thereby increase control over) the purchase of preferred seats or seats in preferred areas (in terms of view and/or price), and the higher up the Friends ladder you are, the greater the advantage conferred (and upfront cost, of course).

 

Unfortunately, on the basis of their approach to the summer booking period, the RB management seems to be of the opinion that priority access to seat booking is sufficient, along with the pre-existing information about programmes and dates, to make successful bookings. 

I would argue that those three aspects might be necessary, but they aren't sufficient for a large number of Friends (to the extent that the opinions expressed on the BCF reflect Friends in general). 

In exchange for handing over a large wodge of cash each year I would expect, when priority booking opens, to be able to make informed decisions about ticket purchases - for that, I need to know the programme, date, and ticket availability but, importantly, I also need to know the cast. Three out of four is not sufficient.

 

The RB management seems unable or unwilling to acknowledge the importance of casts to, I would argue, the majority of Friends (at least, those on BCF - a cursory glance at the forum shows how members, including myself, tend to favour seeing particular dancers). 

Because of that, the upcoming booking (on the 28th for me) will be essentially a lottery, and one that will cost £4 for each failed gamble on trying to see the cast(s) I'm interested in. 

That might be good for the RB's cashflow (the cynic in me is mentally calculating the effective price-hike of returning half the tickets for repurchase on other dates, and - if in desperation I buy many more tickets than I need - the short-term effect on their book balances of 'returning' my excess expenditure as vouchers to be spent next year) but it undermines the rationale to becoming a Friend, especially if casting is not made available until after general booking opens.

For those travelling to London by public transport and/or having to book hotels, the additional costs incurred by missing out on early-bird offers may also be significant.

 

The RB needs to recognise that we all have favourite composers, choreographers *and* dancers, and many of us need to know all three to make informed purchases. Otherwise it starts to resemble the ballet equivalent of Henry Ford's 'you can have any colour as long as it's black'.

 

If the RB fail to recognise and address the issue of providing timely information on casting, then there are likely to be subtle and damaging effects on the relationship between Friends and the RB; folk are already starting to question the value of being a Friend, and who knows if those relationship concerns might end up affecting other ways of giving?

 

I appreciate that casting is the most difficult aspect for the RB management to control and schedule (programmes, dates and seating are trivial in comparison, mainly due to long lead-ins for the first two and real-time booking for the last), and maybe casting is becoming more difficult every cycle, but accepting the importance of casting to a potentially large segment of the paying public would be a start - but on its own it is not enough. 

Rather than recognising the problem but dumping the consequences onto that Friends and the paying public, the RB management should ensure that scheduling is not being slowed down by insufficient resources or inappropriate internal processes (eg if marketing/accounting considerations take precedence over casting activities/customer relations in the setting of booking dates).

If resources are sufficient, then at a minimum, RB management should put in place measures to mitigate adverse effects (ie waive the admin fee for returned tickets).

 

The ideal solution, of course, would be to withhold ticket sales until casting is known (not necessarily full casting across the run; even partial casting or a staged release as performances are cast would be better than nothing - though the response to @Linnzi5's question suggests the RB can't even see the merits of something that obvious. Perhaps they think it's difficult to implement? It isn't - just setting values in a database.); only releasing performances to book once casting is known would be a marvellous way to focus their minds! 

It's not that there isn't 'slack' in the system - the lead-in from first booking to performance for the summer season is around 3.5 months! I'm not privy to the internal workings of the RB, or how efficient they are, but that does seem very generous. Could they not put booking back by a month? Surely casting will be complete within a month from now?!

I'm getting very twitchy about Wednesday (over and above the usual, unavoidable nervousness that comes with competitively spending large sums of money in a short space of time!) and that is not helped by the RB 'apologising' to @Linnzi5 for casting issues and then ploughing on as normal.

How do we ensure this behaviour doesn't become the 'new normal'?
 

 

Nogoat, I do hope that you send your post to the ROH. Each and every one of the points that you make should be addressed - and satisfactorily addressed- by way of a reasoned and informative response, not dismissive corporate-speak which, lets face it, is either patronising, insulting or both. And if you wish others to add their names before approaching the ROH, I will be more than happy to provide mine.