capybara

An amazing artist and wonderful, warm person. Marion is one of the real treasures of the ballet world. It’s so good that she will continue to coach.

I had a letter last week reminding me that donations to the ROH before the 15th December would be doubled by the Board. I hadn’t had a previous letter although I saw that some BCF members had.

This is proving to be an expensive time despite (or perhaps because of) my lack of expenditure on tickets. The Big Give (wherein one’s donation is doubled) is on again this year between the 1st and the 8th December with ENB and the RBS already e-mailing to say they are participating.

I’m afraid I don’t know who was invited. I just got an email with a link. Consultation with the audience was not an element. There was a statement from Alex, a recap on recent endeavours from Kevin O’Hare, a conversation between him and Edward Watson, an input from Olly Mears, an interview with Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and a 5 minute opportunity for questions.

There was no indication of this when Alex Beard spoke online to Friends and Patrons on Tuesday. Reducing the ROH’s cost base was the described as the first element of its recovery plan and regretful mention was made of negotiations over staff reductions reaching their conclusion currently.

I’m afraid I do care about casting. I agree that all the leads will be wonderful but, as someone who has been advised to be extra careful (formerly shielded), I need to weigh the risks of travel and being in the ROH against the ‘return’ I will get from the performance. So I’m eagerly awaiting news of the RB’s Claras and Princes in particular. Apologies - this is an ENB thread after all!

I know, and I sympathise, but the juggling needs to go on underneath the ‘headline’ dancers and the RB is due to start nearly a week earlier than ENB.

As we have now discovered, ENB films all its shows for archive purposes. Here’s hoping that Nutcracker Delights will be streamed at some point. Well done ENB for getting some casting out. RB - where is yours?

The owner is a huge fan of the RB and of Vadim Muntagirov. He and his family regularly travel abroad with the company on tour. (Just to add that I know who the owner is by chance. The horse is news to me but, given the family’s enthusiasm for ballet, it’s name cannot be simply coincidental. 🐎 )

Yes, and so would the programme on the 4th. I had a message to say that that would finish at 8.15pm but it went on until 9.25pm including a 20 minute interval. My impression was that pas de deux had been added in both directions to give both of the couples preparing a pas de deux the opportunity to perform . A good plan for the dancers and for us.

There is, as I suggested, a key difference from what we have seen before insofar as the ears are now cut away. Also, the helmets are being worn lower at the front, thus hiding the dancers’ hairlines which were visible before .

The 'helmets' shown in the photo above did not have cut away ears (the fact that they did this time supports my 'masks theory') and were worn further forward on the dancers' heads with no hairline showing. So there was a change.........

Were the ears cut away to accommodate mask wearing , I wonder?

I think the problem for me with the TchaiPas in Friday’s streaming was over-anticipation. Don’t get me wrong - I enjoyed it as a pdd and a performance. However, Anna Rose O’Sullivan’s and Marcelino Sambe’s dancing of it in New York in 2018 had been so widely lauded (including on here) that I was probably looking forward to it too much and expecting too much from them as well. Having watched Muntagirov and Nunez rehearsing it - well running it straight through - during World Ballet Day and having been lucky enough to have also seen them perform it live on the 4th November, my view is that

I have seen that variation performed in the Corsaire pas de deux in previous galas. There are clearly options as far as these showpieces are concerned.