barton22

For anyone attending this particular show the Sechs Tanze, which is new to me, was absolutely amazing. I was in row D so had a fantastic view of the dancing which was outstanding and so funny. I hope they include this in the Matinee performance on the big stage.

 

It will be performed in the Main Stage Matinee.  (There is a good recording of it on the recently reissued dvd/blu ray of Kylian's Black and White Ballets on the Arthaus label.)

Delighted no outsider was taken on as a new Principal, leaving space for future Principals to come through the RB ranks.

 

I agree.  This was a relief.  If O'Hare can use non-principals like Hayward, Kaneko, Naghdi, Takada and Ball in principal roles and bring them on, the fact he may be a little short on actual principals shouldn't matter and will help reduce the chance that up and coming dancers get blocked by the ranks above being over full and there being no money to pay more dancers the higher salaries that attach to those ranks.  He needs to find some more potential principal men in the lower ranks.  Right now it is hard to see any other than Ball (there are some other good dancers, but not necessarily potential principals).

Though I think Matthew Ball being promoted to First Artist and not Soloist reflects that he has only done 1 full complete season with the company, as didn't he join midway through the 2013/2014 season?

 

He was unable to dance for much of his first season as he was recovering from surgery undertaken at the end of his time at the school, but I believe he was a member of the company throughout the season.  I find the fact that he didn't move to Soloist disappointing.  He has been dancing principal roles (in Onegin and this last weekend in Infra) and will be dancing Romeo in the autumn.  The First Artist rank doesn't really seem to me to be appropriate.  Sambe and Acri are from the same class year at the school and while they have been dancing a lot they are not dancing principal roles (I am not suggesting they don't deserve their promotions; just that Ball deserves that rank at least as much as they do).  I am not sure the higher rank would put extra pressure on Ball, as was suggested above.  It is the roles that do that and he is getting them; it just denies him some well deserved status and additional compensation (which at junior dancer salary level makes a big difference).

I seem to remember reading, not too long ago, about another potential male signing/guest (Cuban?) for ENB. Can anyone point me in the right direction? 

Could you be thinking of Alejandro Virelles?  He is Cuban, male and a principal and he joined last year but I didn't really clock him until he appeared in the Modern Masters programme in April (partnering Cojocaru in "in the middle, somewhat elevated").

I like the Coliseum location, the theatre architecture and the less stuffy atmosphere, but my problem is the view from the seats which are not well raked or spaced, it can't just be me as there are always people trying to change seats in the intervals, this is mainly the Dress and Upper Circles, the Balcony is better but very uncomfortable, whereas I nearly always have a seat with a good view in the ROH amphi and book with confidence.

I have the same problem with the raking in the Coliseum.  I know it can sometimes be an issue in the stalls at the ROH, but I find it more of a problem at the Coliseum.

Really?  At the Coli you can see from virtually every seat whereas at the ROH half the seats are restricted in some way and those with a clear view are either miles from the stage or massively expensive.

I think that's right, but has to be balanced with the much more pleasant overall experieince of attending a performance at the ROH.  The Coli has dingy, unbelieveably cramped bar areas for the intervals, which I find miserable to spend time in; and, at least in the stalls area, the toilet facilites are pretty disgusting and always reek - such a consistent problem it is hard to understand why they don't/can't fix it.  (The interior of the Coli auditorium always strikes me as tacky, but that's just a question of taste.)  The dance and the viewing experience are. of course, more important, but I always find my visits to the Coli tainted by the problems with the parts of the theatre outside the auditorium itself. 

I would wait and see it done properly next summer by the Bolshoi when they visit London.  It is not just a far better production that that of the Royal Ballet; it is danced far, far better by the Russians.  It is a piece that just doesn't seem to suit the Royal Ballet's dancers.

Well, I'll hold fire on Shrew until I've seen the cinema broadcast .  I for one, though, am glad they aren't bringing Marco Spada: I might have given that one a miss.

There are some substantial chunks of the Bolshoi Shrew on You Tube (one section is over half an hour long) if you want to get a sense of what it is like.  (Not sure if it is still available online, but the Bolshoi section of World Ballet Day included Maillot rehearsing Lantratov and Krysanova in the piece.)

The DVD and Blu Ray are now available for pre-order on Amazon.  Release date is June 29th.

I would second the Bejart and Ratmansky wishes.  I'd also like to see Neumeier's Lady of the Camelias in the rep here and works by Justin Peck.  Not sure whether it has been done by either Royal company, but Forsythe's full evening Artifact would also be fantastic; it was wonderful as danced by Royal Ballet Flanders a few years ago.  (More than all of this, though, I would like to see the Royal Ballet make more use of its fantastic library of works that never seem to be revived.  They have some of the Forsythe ballets (In the Middle, Vertiginous Thrill and Steptext) I would love to see and some Balanchine pieces like Bugaku that are very interesting and seem to have been mothballed.)  

Row H on the sides behind the stairs is the best place as there's no one in front of you. These seats do go quite quickly during advanced booking though. I love row A on the sides as well. It's a little cheaper and you miss some of their feet when the dancers go half way up the stage, but you make up for it in proximity. The centre is fine too but you might find the conductor a distraction. It's great for dramatic ballets like Manon and Mayerling. Otherwise I've sat all over the stalls and the rake is bad everywhere, so I've never had an unobscured view. 

Generally if you can get a seat on the outside of the aisle you have a pretty clear view as your line of vision is across the aisle and not around the head of the person in front.  These seats go early, though; and the ones on the auditorium left side are often preferred by critics and allocated to them.

Would you mind expanding on what the disappointments were?

I am sure Bruce will answer, but as they were at the Coliseum I suspect it is the usual issue of the Coliseum totally failing to promote non-opera events and so the companies struggle to sell all the sets and lose money.

Ballet doesn't seem like good value for money anymore. I don't think I can afford to see anything live next year, especially if I've seen it many times before (like R&J, new casts or not!) :-(  Without getting too political, incomes haven't exactly been on the rise in the last few years, so I don't think the ROH can justify this jump in prices. I think the high prices might be justified if its used to subsidise new work, but if its to subsidise the Connectome/Raven girl bill, well it feels like a bit of a slap in the face.

I think at least part of the reason for the price rises is that government grants to arts organizations keep getting cut (or at least not increased) by governments of all flavours.  The money has to come from somewhere and after years of declining state support many arts organizations have already gone a fair way towards paring back on their overhead.  If standrads are to be maintained and dancers and other employees not to be paid worse than they are at this stage, revenue needs to be raised.  I suspect that without the seemingly ever expanding bar and restaurant and other commercial activities at the ROH (irritating as some of this expansion can be), ticket prices would need to have increased even more.

Connectome / Raven Girl is the cheapest by a long way - top price of £45 in the stalls, £24 in the central block of the amphi. 

 

It will need to be, given the deservedly dire reputation of Raven Girl and the mediocre quality of Connectome's choreography.  You couldn't pay me to watch this programme, let alone charge me for it.

Casting now up for Royal Ballet in NYC (Koch Theater).  Source.  

 

Nice to see Cuthbertson, Pennefather and Zucchetti returned.  A very interesting selection of divertissements both old and new.  

Nice also to see Matthew Ball in Ed Watson's role in Infra.  I think he will be stunning dancing that.

A very interesting selection of divertissements both old and new.  

Not sure whether it has been mentioned elsewhere on the forum, but apparently they decided it wasn't feasible to cart the set for Aeternum to NYC and so pulled it and stuck in this mish mash of extracts and short pieces.  I think it is an improvement to the programme.  Bit of a shame that at an early stage they pulled Connectome and switched in Age of Anxiety.  I didn't love Connectome, but think it is a better piece and it seems a bit odd for a London company to take a New York themed piece to New York (although I assume some see it the other way around).

I find the wax candle in the form of Osipova rather disturbing.  They have used it as the image for the work on the ROH webpage and I have heard it will "burn" in the background through some or all of the piece.  Looks creepy to me.

Maybe when we finally see Muntagirov on stage with Lauren Cutherbertson, there might be some exciting chemistry there (Polunin replacement?)

I saw Vadim and Lauren dance the Tchaikovsky pdd in Japan three years ago and thought they were a decent but not electrifying pairing.  He was much less experienced and more reserved in those days, though, and I suspect they would be much better now that he has come out of his shell a bit more and they would have a lengthy rehearsal period.  Lauren seems to be to be quite good at drawing more thrilling performances out of her partners than might otherwise be the case.  I wonder whether they might dance the piece in the Viscera mixed programme this autumn... 

That is correct. He said that he hadn't wanted to announce casting too far in advance as he wished to see how certain (presumably junior) dancers might develop.

 

I got an email from the ROH yesterday confirming that they expected to announce ballet casting at the end of April so it was available before the first tiers of priority ticket booking opened.

He seems to be dancing more and more with Osipova, so maybe they are trying to build on that.  Technically they are well matched, but I think her dramatic abilities far outstrip his, so there isn't really a parity there.  .........  I think in the dramatic stakes she is better matched with Golding. 

I find McRae much more convincing dramatically than Golding (and I am REALLY not a McRae fan other than on a technical level).  McRae can overdo it sometimes and look a little self satisfied, but I really can't find Golding convincing as an actor at all and the fixed look of furrowed-browed-angst and clenched teeth just doesn't work for me.  I wish they would mix up the partnering with Osipova.  I'd love to see Muntagirov with her and she might bring out of him some more animated acting.  Bonelli too; he is lovely but can be rather too reserved and cautious as a dancer and she might bring something really exciting out of him.  Although he seems to be checked out much of the time he is on stage, I'd also like to see whether she could fire up Pennefather; he seems so uninterested in his job, but a wasted talent and surely worth an attempt at salvation!

I wonder if he is aware that a lot of his principals are of a similar age, and may fear a repeat of Benjamin, Galeazzi, Cojocaru, Kobborg and Rojo departure?

I am sure he is.  Succession planning should definitely be a focus.  It is encouraging that he seems to be very focused on his younger talent and he seems to be hiring more men from the School who have potential principal qualities than I felt Mason did (I didn't see the same issue with the women she recruited on graduation).  She seemed to have a bias towards hiring small men from the School, and while some (like Hay) are very beautiful dancers, they are not necessarily going to be principal material.  

As others have said, hopefully he will resist the temptation to promote just because a principal slot becomes available and will just cast more junior dancers in principal roles and bring some on so that in a few years they can take the slots that open up when Acosta, Watson and Bonelli (and Yanowsky and Morera among the women) retire without him needing to make lateral hires from other companies (especially as those rarely seem to work out well on the male side, although I think Bonelli is an exception and arguably the best all rounder of the current male principals and others may find artistic qualities in Kish and Golding that completely evade me).  It may mean we have a season or two of relatively inexperienced dancers in leading roles, but that could be quite an exciting time for regular Royal Ballet-goers (I appreciate it may lead to some disappointments for less frequent visitors to the ROH who understandably expect a completely polished performance).

Yes, and the same couples in 'Romeo and Juliet'!  (but Hayward with Hay). 

I wonder whether Hay could really make a good go of a leading man role like this.  He is a beautiful dancer, but so tiny and slightly built he doesn't seem suited to it and I'm not sure he is physically strong enough.

 

It pays the bills for the rest of the season.

It does fill the house, but I always find this argument for a regular long run of Nut a bit odd at Covent Garden as most Royal Ballet full length programmes sell very well (and at comparable ticket prices to those charged for Nut) and it isn't as if they have a huge problem generating ticket revenue.  Some of the mixed programmes have lower ticket prices attached, but runs of Beauty, Giselle, Lac, Don Q or many other ballets would surely do the financial trick just as well without the same six week block of the season being consumed by the same ballet most years.

Outstanding Achievement in Dance went to Crystal Pite for her three productions for The Associates at Sadlers Wells.

I am delighted about the award for Pite.  I have loved her work at Sadler's Wells.  The movement she uses is so distinctive and I have been fascinated by each piece I have seen.  All of The Tempest Replica, Polaris and A Picture of You Falling were extraordinary and some of the best things I have seen over the last 15 months or so.  I'm so pleased she is now an Associate Artist at SW and really hope O'Hare will bring her in to do something with the Royal Ballet.  I think she would do something much more interesting with them than Hofesh did (and what a contrast there was in the quality of their work at the SW Associates evening earlier this year; she outclassed him by a mile).  It would also be great to a female choreographer working with the Royal.

Note it was an ROH Foundation event in 2013 (not cheap, but good cause etc) and featured Zenaida Yanowsky and Carlos Acosta (and others) in "An evening of song, dance, drama and music, charting the life of Elizabeth I in her own words, and those of the men who loved her." How it relates to the Linbury shows is not known.

 

Thanks for pulling this all together, Bruce.  The Elizabeth is the one that the link you found relates to.  The season guide states that.