barton22

I might have written about this before, but the worst part of the La Scala DVD is that the screen is split into two at the 3rd act variation for Novikova and half of the screen shows the piano's keyboards. Horrible. (and I am not a fan of the production either, it is indeed dull) 

I agree that the camera work and presentation is irritating - that split screen is horrendous.  I find this a problem with some Mariinsky recordings as well - odd camera angles (for example, in their Jewels recording with a camera overhead and one very visible at the centre of the footlights) and poor choices of focus in the camera work (for example, a tendency to keep the camera on the ballerina even when she is doing nothing and the principal man is executing fireworks elsewhere on stage but barely visible on screen, as happened a few times in their Romeo and Juliet recording).  I sometimes wonder whether particular artists involved in these performances demand a certain amount of exposure as part of their consent to the filming and release of the recording.  I think the Royal Ballet recordings generally have pretty good camera work.

A long wait but so worth it. The disks will be up on Amazon soon and hopefully at a lower price. I seem to remember (it was a long time ago!) that Frankenstein was promised for October?

 

Also the Scala Raymonda with Olesia Novikova & Friedmann Vogel is scheduled for release on 9th Sept along with a re-issue of the Dutch National Ballet's Don Quichot with Anna Tsygankova &Matthew Golding, I'm hoping with the technical problems solved. Don't know anything about the Raymonda performance but the Don Quichot has had good reviews performance-wise.

I agree on pricing.  Amazon usually starts listing at the same price as the ROH but does occasionally drop the price, which the ROH shop never seems to do.

That Raymonda is a reissue.  Not that it is any less appealing for that, but it is currently available in its original packaging from its 2012 release.  The current price on Amazon is quite a bit lower for the upcoming reissue, though.

Another upcoming release is yet another Nutcracker (as if we didn't have enough on dvd/bluray).  It is a 1999 Berlin performance on Arthaus.  I suspect this is a reissue, although I haven't seen it show up before.

(I know I am supposed to stick to ballet here, but I see the Royal Opera Jonas Kaufmann Andrea Chenier is now due to be released on September 9th and, at least today, it looks quite keenly priced in both dvd and bluray formats on Amazon.)

What time did the performance end last night? I am thinking of bus times as I need to catch the half past eleven train from Liverpool Street. I agree with Floss and Wuff. Give me reconstructions any day of the week. I wish that the RB would restore the Awakening Pas de Deux back into their Sleeping Beauty

22.40, although scheduled to end ten minutes later.  Given that Bolshoi tend to start late I would build in some cushion for that - I assume they just through things a bit faster than anticipated last night.  Also bear in mind that with the building work going on and only one entrance and exit, it is taking far longer to get out (and in at the start) than usual.

Since I'm sure quite a few people on this forum will have been to tonight's performance already, could someone give me an idea of running time, please?  (Plus of course discuss the production if you like )

Well, it felt like an eternity.....but was over at around 22.40 (which is ten minutes earlier than the cast list stated it would end).  I love the Bolshoi and have loved each ballet I have seen this season (well, except the disastrous Thursday performance of Don Q) but this was less than thrilling and way, way, way too long.  I didn't think the dancing was as good as it has been in the other ballets they have shown this season and this production needs a lot of cutting and they also need to scale it down a bit more for this stage as at times it looked like Piccadilly Circus at rush hour and more an exercise in collision avoidance than dance.  ENB's production is much better in my view.  Anyway, I am going again on Saturday evening and hoping for a more inspiring performance.

_{Does anyone know if day tickets are available for the Bolshoi performances?}

As the performances are sold out they are taking returns (I have recently returned some tickets) and unless they have a waiting list for returns they put them on the website; so it is worth checking website regularly.  Some showed up yesterday but got snapped up pretty quickly.

I'm sorry but I did not feel that Shrainer was even adequate as Kitri last night and felt distinctly sorry for Ovcharenko who - as the evening progressed - and experiencing much hard work in this particular bout of heavy weather - was bravely - and all too clearly - 'acting' in his adoration for his principal charge.  There is no question but that the loving smile became rather fixed I fear.  (Shrainer may have sawed out her fouettes - distinctly NOT to the music - Krysanova was the role model there - but her finish was far from anyone's idea of a second - be it open or closed ... landing something more akin to a 22 I think - and the reason she tripped at the end of her pirouette diagonal in the first act is because on several earlier turns she hadn't finished and thus found distinct difficulty in beginning again!  Classroom stuff.  As capybara suggests I'm not sure it was the wisest - or certainly the kindest - to her or us - decision to throw her on in London in this iconic role)  There is a clear reason I think why Shrainer/Ovcharenko never took a call in front of the curtain either after the first act or at the end.  You didn't need a PhD to be able to read between Ovcharenko's lines.  That was understandably beyond the call of his duty last night.  

I completely agree with you, Bruce.  I don't hold it against Shrainer but rather the company management for putting her on when she clearly was nowhere near ready for a stage performance (and was, I understand, really quite unwell).  I felt terribly, terribly sorry for both her and Ovcharenko and that the whole event was an embarrassment to the company.  No one sensible expects a first performance of a principal role by such an inexperienced and junior dancer to be perfect, but this was just beyond the pale.  I really hope it doesn't mean she won't get another chance when properly prepared for a leading role (it isn't as if this of all companies lacks the resources properly to prepare its dancers for performance), as I did see the positive qualities in her, and several aspects of her performance, that others have been kind enough to focus on.  One of the company's other Kitris (and if necessary her own Basilio) should have been fielded in the circumstances.  After the first act I felt things were going so badly that I seriously thought they might switch in another ballerina to finish, but unfortunately they didn't.

lots of little nuances, raised eyebrows, cheeky looks and stolen kisses.

I agree - Alexandrova in particular was delightfully playful throughout.

The lighting was horrendous, the start of the dream sequence was probably medically dangerous.

The lighting is almost blindingly bright isn't it?  From one extreme with the Royal's low light/gloomy productions of Scarlett/McGregor et al to something so bright with this Don Q that it takes a few seconds for your retina to recover from the shock when the lights come on at the start of each act!

I thought it was good but not great performance tonight.  Smirnova is fabulous, but not as Kitri.  I thought she did a decent job but the role just doesn't suit her.  She will be more in her element on Friday in Swan Lake.  Rodkin was much better as Basilio and had more oomph than I thought he would based on what I have seen of him before.  I'm looking forward to Krysanova and Chudin on Wednesday and it is going to be interesting to see how Corps de Ballet member Shrainer does as Kitri on Thursday.  It is good to have the company back here.  Even a slightly underpowered performance like tonight's is so much more exciting than the Royal.

 4 teenage girls behind me .... their mobiles vibrating throughout, I just couldn't get into the ballet and decided to cut my losses and go home.

There is an issue with people leaving their mobiles on vibrate in the ROH as well.  It is rare for me not to hear them during a performance there.  For some reason people seem to think their phones make no noise when set to vibrate, but when all is quiet in mid-performance the vibration is quite audible from several seats away.  Actually texting or updating Facebook or otherwise having the screen lit up seems much less common an occurence at the ROH than I find it at the Coli or Sadler's Wells, but the vibration seems to be more of an issue at the ROH than it is at those other theatres.

I'm sure someone with more patience than me will post the dates etc and casting for Woolf Works and the triple in the next booking period, but Beauty casting just received shows Aurora/Florimund pairings of Lamb/Golding, Takada/Hay, Choe/Kish, Nunez/Mutagirov, Hayward/Campbell, Naghdi/Ball, Cuthbertson/Clarke, Osipova/Hirano, Salenko/McRae, Kobayashi/Bonelli.  Nice to see some up and coming dancers getting a chance to tackle this.

I absolutely love the Grand Defile, what a fantastic end it gives to the show, but I think I saw something a bit different this year. Following the whole school flying on to the stage in rows of boy/girl/boy/girl etc. during the cheering and applause the stage lights went out for just a moment and when they came back on the order had changed so all the girls were on one side and all the boys on the other. Is this normal or am I having a senior moment?

I think it all happens so fast it can trick the eye.  They always come on women on the (auditorium) left and men on the right decreasing in class year from the centre and did so this year.  

My other stand out was Kaho Yanagisawa who is off to Royal Ballet Sweden - our loss I'm afraid!   She was fabulous. 

 

Completely agree and I can't understand how O'Hare, Bintley and Rojo can all have passed on her (especially when so very many places were made available at the Royal Ballet for this year's graduates).  Beautiful dancer with great technique and stage presence and she was so good at capturing the Ashton style in the lead in Les Rendezvous last year.  I hope she does well and is happy in Stockholm, but I can't see their rep making anything like the most of her gifts.  I think she is the outstanding female graduate this year.

A dvd/blu ray of this ballet is due to be released early next month.  It is available for pre-order on Amazon.

I believe that a press release on promotions should be available this afternoon so worth keeping an eye on the ROH website if you are interested.   

Two books to look out for.Sir Peter Wright's autobiography will be out soon. 

This is now able to be pre-ordered on Amazon.  The title is "Wrights & Wrongs".  The release date is said to be tomorrow (June 1st) but sometimes Amazon has inaccurate release date information....

Something that I think emerged after the cameras stopped rolling (during the Q&A with the audience at the end) was that the scheduled second cast might not perform.  Wayne talked about the challenges of preparing more than one cast when creating new work and as I recall expressed a hope that the second cast would get on stage sometime during the run, but only if he was happy that they were sufficiently up to speed.  I suspect that given that the casting has been announced for some time there would be some pressure on him to respect that, but I definitely got the sense that we may not see the advertised second cast, and if they do get on stage it may not be on the dates advertised.  

Thank you for that information Barton22, did you receive the information as a Friend? I am also Friend but have not had any information about period1 casting as yet.

My booking deadline is next week.  I suspect they will now load on the site so it will be there soon. 

Looks like there's a Hayward/Sambe cast for Fille but just one show.  Anastasia is Osipova/Cuthbertson/Morera as the lead.  Chroma will be danced by a mix of RB and Alvin Ailey dancers at each performance.  in Nut there are Sugar Plum/Prince pairings of Hayward/Campbell, Naghdi/Ball, Stix-Brunell/Edmonds and Calvert/Clarke. (Hayward Campell get two shows but the other three couples seem to get just one each.)  Doesn't seem to be on the website yet but the email is out.

Oh, I'm a friend of SW and haven't yet received my season brochure.

This is unusually early for them, as they usually drop it on you in the Saturday morning post when booking opens on Monday morning and give you almost no time to work out what you want to book.  I stopped being a patron there in the last few months, so it may be I am getting it a bit early because I am still in a patron database.  Mind you, they have never delivered the brochure early for patrons in the past and don't offer any timing priority in booking for patrons, which is one of the reasons I dropped it and switched back to being a member/friend.  I complained loudly about the consistently last minute delivery of the brochure a number of times over the last few years and was always told that they didn't get the scheduling confirmed until the last minute and so couldn't send the brochure earlier.  The point I made that they could always shift the booking date back a week (so we all had time to digest the brochure and work out what we wanted without scrambling) fell on deaf ears. 

The new season booklet for Sadler's Wells arrived in the mail yesterday and I see they have another run of this programme from September 27th to October 1st, so there will be another opportunity to get tickets and you could see what the reviews of the initial run are like before booking.  I am now tempted to return some of my June/July tickets for credit and wait and potentially see this in the autumn after initial reviews.  (I was a bit underwhelmed by the SW autumn season, although Alvin Ailey, BRB (Tempest) and the already-open-for-booking ENB/Kahn Giselle will be on the booking list for me.  That's a topic for another thread, though.)

Autumn casting information has just been promised by the end of tomorrow (based on an email to patrons and perhaps others this afternoon).  I'd be surprised if they didn't load it on the website at the same time.

Not sure whether it has already been mentioned, but a new irritant for me was the Apple watch the man sitting next to me at the Coliseum last week was sporting.  Every time he moved his arms such that the face of the watch became horizontal, the screen automatically lit up.  Unfortunately he was both a fidgeter and a clock watcher so there were constant bursts of light from his arm throughout the performance.

Another release in the pipeline seems to be the Royal Ballet quadruple bill from last autumn (the one including Acosta's Carmen).  I saw this come up on Steven McRae's twitter account with a link to the ROH online shop.  I can't recall an earlier press release about it but I suspect I just missed it.  Release date (at least in the ROH shop, which sometimes has the Opus Arte recordings in advance of more general release) is May 2nd.  http://www.roh.org.uk/products/viscera-carmen-blu-ray-disc-the-royal-ballet

Not sure whether this has been mentioned elsewhere on the forum, but a dvd and blu ray release of Osipova and the wonderful Sarafanov dancing Don Q at La Scala is now available for pre-order on Amazon.  The label is C major Entertainment.  Release date seems to be April 1 (by which time I hope the price has come down a bit from a rather steep £29.99).