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Coated

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  1. Coated

    Room 101

    Coated replied to taxi4ballet's topic in Not Dance

    Argh, whistling in any enclosed area should be outlawed. There were two different guys whistling in the cafe where I was reading my Sunday papers yesterday. One just whistled the same 4 notes over and over. The other had about 6 different notes. Bah.
  2. Coated
    The only thing I'd quibble with is whether Chase Johnsey should have won best female dancer as Yakaterina Verbosovitch. I was very enamoured with his Kitri. Also love that Jonathon Young / Betroffenheit won - can't wait to see it again at Sadler's.
  3. Coated
    I get that people are disappointed about missing out on the cast they want to see, or at least a decent seat but I really don't think that there is anything dodgy on a large scale about these performances booking up very fast. Mayerling is popular, it's possibly Watsons last outing. People want tickets. One missing amphi means there are even less tickets available and a fair amount of people will end up disappointed. Yerma booked out at the Young Vic, Angels in America was a bun fight at the NT, the Almeida's Hamlet tickets went like hot cakes. Other plays at those theatres are still easily available. All of those plays will show up overpriced on resale sites. Until someone passes a law to close down those sites (doesn't look likely), popular tickets will appear on them.
  4. Coated
    I've just closed my eyes (metaphorically speaking), ignored fiscally responsible behaviour and booked lovely tickets for when I'm visiting a friend in Vienna. 1 ballet, two operas and a concert at the Musikverein. Utter bliss and it cheered me up no end. Just missed their Onegin time wise, but I think I will cope with the disappointment and return another year
  5. Coated
    I'm not a huge Butterfly fan, but much prefer the ROH version to the ENO, which annoyed me for some reason. Also, the Italian just sounds better to me. I'm not entirely sure that I will survive Jaho's Butterfly with my heart intact. You should absolutely get a ticket for her if you can. If you just want to try the ROH version, I have a spare standing for the Martinez Butterfly on the 25th of April.
  6. Coated
    I think my standout was Jaho in Suor Angelica, and the other opera I really enjoyed was The Cunning Vixen. Quite enjoyed Hoffman too, but didn't get on with most of Der Rosenkavalier. Seem to have forgotten about most of the other things I've seen. I probably liked Lucia better than Norma (is this heresy?)
  7. Coated
    I watched it as an opera and quite enjoyed it. I wasn't too enamoured with Paul, but the rest of the singing was pretty nifty and I loved the piano 'Orchestra'. I actually liked the multiple versions of characters and the odd dream like repetitions and thought the narrator worked beautifully. I did watch the insight, so had a bit of an idea of the story. I thought the story itself was clear enough in the telling, especially when taking into consideration that it was based on a Cocteau film. But then I like that sort of stuff.
  8. Coated
    Someone recently mentioned that there is a new or different type of dry ice used that doesn't warp wood instruments in the pit. Perhaps it was a slightly different type of dry ice that set you off.
  9. Coated
    If you have questions for the guests, you can email them in on graham.norton@bbc.co.uk https://twitter.com/malprin/status/824887161497399296 ETA: The show is broadcast between 10am - 1pm, so it might be easier to catch it on iPlayer later if you don't want to listen to all of it...
  10. Coated
    Let's be realistic, if there are 7000 tickets and the entire ballet watching audience tries to get them, a lot of people will be disappointed irregardless of whether a comparatively small number of people buys more than one ticket.
  11. Coated
    ....or buy stalls seats kids who gargle with snot all through a performance. Grr.
  12. Coated
    The difference between booking on my iPad at home or my work computer is huge, so having a decent connection and a device that works well with the ROH site helps (selecting seats sometimes turns unresponsive on my iPad, never on the laptop or work machine). I just fought my way through the Friday Rush across the river to get a Hedda Gabler ticket, which also starts at 1pm - wish these things could be spread out.
  13. Coated
    I'm not feeling quite as enthusiastic about MdP as the rest of board, but hope to see her one day in another ballet where I can actually see her footwork. The choice of wearing dark shoes and tights in a darkly lit second act with a dark floor means that she was an oddly shortened, footlessly floating Myrtha from my balcony perch. Makes a potentially lovely bourree invisible to people without catlike night vision.
  14. Coated
    I think the entrechats are very effective to both illustrate exhaustion as mentioned upstream, and to create a sense of compulsion. In the Skeaping version, a lot of the sequence is taken up by Albrecht begging Myrtha for mercy - it kind of works, but I don't get the sense that the men are killed through exhaustive dancing alone, particularly with Hilarion being marched offstage never to be seen again. For all I know Myrtha's helpers might have pushed him down a well. I really enjoyed the Summerscales / Parish evening show tonight, there was a lovely sweetness to it and they both were a joy to watch. I'm pleasantly surprised how much I like Parish in this run of Giselles, having not been massively taken with his Mariinsky outings a couple of years ago. Isabella Brouwers was another excellent 'in-house' Myrtha - she struck me as a little Puck-like and brilliantly bolshy. It crossed my mind that she'd probably make a fun Puck in Pita's Dream, though I'd happily watch her in a more traditional version as well...
  15. Coated
    I was wondering about that too - are they perhaps optional? Though I'd expect that some of the other Albrechts could have done them nicely as well...
  16. Coated
    Cesar Corrales delivered a stunning and assured debut. That boy is heading straight to stardom, isn't he? I expected his dancing to be very good, and he superseded my expectations - by the time he delivered his entrechats I might have forgotten to breathe regularly. What I really didn't expect was his finely tuned dramatic delivery - It felt like I could 'hear' his Albrecht think at times, his character was fully fleshed out as a carefree young man in love, realising what he has done and fervently wishing he could make amends. I might have dropped a tear. He had a lovely chemistry with Elena Badenes, whose Giselle I enjoyed, particularly her lovely little 'skips' (dunno what they are actually called) I don't think I need to say more about Lauretta Summerscales Myrtha other than see her if you can. Best wicked glint in town.
  17. Coated
    Wonderful article, thank you very much for posting it. I will undoubtedly pay a lot more attention to the fugue and some of the details described in today's performances
  18. Coated
    Lauretta Summerscales is a fabulous Myrtha. She really inhabits the character, fierce and authoritative, with dancing to match. I hope she'll dance the role for a long time to come. This was my first Skeaping Giselle and Cojacaru's 'debut' (which rather amused my seat neighbour), so I can now finally say I've seen her debut in Giselle. Unsurprisingly, she did tremendously well and I like her with Hernandez though he seemed a bit too far on the unconcerned youth side for Alina's ethereal and tragic Giselle at times. All of this and Corrales in the pdd on top made for a great cast. Lovely Wilis all around, can't wait to go back for more. ETA: couldn't agree more to Bruce Wall's comment about the lighting - it was beautiful and incredibly atmospheric
  19. Coated
    Bruce, if you read through threads on Ballet Alert you'll see both some enthusiastic comments and a different take on some of Muntagirov's appearances about not connecting to his partner (Vadim?! I always think he could connect to a stone if necessary) or not being showy enough. But in reality no dancer can please everyone. Somewhat more on topic - I saw my last Nutcracker of this season yesterday, and was again very taken with O'Sullivan and Hay. James Hay's soft and elegant movements are just a piece of beauty.
  20. Coated
    Today's matinee was the perfect way to start Christmas Eve for me. I thought O'Sullivan was beautiful as Clara, with so many little touches - a smile here, a glance there - to flesh out the character and perfectly paired with Hay. Francesca Hayward showed why she has become such a young principal. She might not quite yet have the gravitas that comes from experience to completely own the stage as Sugar Plum Fairy, but she can't be much more than a run or 2 or nuts away from developing it in spades. Her dancing was beautiful and joyous and the same time, she and Cambell were a very enjoyable pair. And the most smouldering Arabian dance goes to Tierney Heap - she practically sizzled her way through the performance, loved it. And a special mention to the little girl (maybe 5) and her mother who were standing next to me. I still think it's a little insane, but her mother managed to carry her at 'viewing height' through the entire performance. I really hope she didn't do her back in. They were rather sweet together and the daughter seemed to really enjoy it, so maybe it was worth a potential future visit to the osteopath.
  21. Coated
    This sounds exciting and reminded me to check for tickets for Lamb/Muntagirov. This was clearly my lucky day, let's hope the luck lasts and the rest of the cast is the same on the 3rd
  22. Coated
    I think if judged based on other programmes by equally famous dancers at the London Coliseum in recent years, the assumption that this is likely to be a vanity project is spot on. That doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth watching, but it helps to be prepared for some inexplicable choreography choices.
  23. Coated
    There might have been the odd tiny pointe wobble, but I don't think that distracted enough to be an issue. Bourne is firmly dance theatre in my mind, and the pointe bits were just quick illusions of classical ballet rather than attempting to please hardcore ballet masters. Overall I liked Red Shoes well enough (this translates to no consideration of skipping the second half) but didn't really get emotional involved. I marvelled at the clever proscenium arch, enjoyed the staging of the ballet within the ballet (but not having a bleeding light shining into my eye...), thoroughly disliked the usual Bourne-has-a-'fun'-nightclub/equivalent-scene-in-every-show and eventually learned to keep the samey characters apart. In short, I thought it was clever, but not all that engaging.
  24. Coated
    Couldn't agree more. If a publicly funded arts organisation held back 100 tickets to sell for silly money if the rest of the performance sold out, they'd be regarded as greedy sods. If a tout buys up a chunk of tickets and sells them on Viagogo or similar, they are 'enterprising'. Pah. Edit: did have a quick browse on Viagogo and found an amphi standing for just over £50 - reduced from £79.80. And 250 pound tickets for performances that still have good tickets available on the ROH side. What is wrong with people? Who is daft enough to buy this?
  25. Coated
    I seem to have developed an accidental Cojocaru radar. Out of 4 random dates booked ages ago, I ended up with 3 Alina dates. There a worse things that can befall a person Saaaadly I now had to get a couple of additional performances...it's going to a lovely, lovely January.
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