Coated

I think the format works really well

Must use clearer wording - in my head the autumn 2014/15 season is already 'this run', with the next run being a time in the far flung future that has not yet been decided upon.

Fingers crossed that the casting fairies make this happen for the next run, I would love to see a Zucchetti flavoured Basilio.

I can only agree with everything that was said about last night's dream. Zucchetti was born for the role of Puck, adding comedy touches with the movement of an eyebrow whilst leaping all over the stage with beautiful movements. Seeing Osipova / Golding in the dress rehearsal convinced me that I probably do want to fork out money for their Manon. Prior to the Dream I could see that Golding can make a decent prince, but wasn't convinced that he ought to be an RB prince. It was a slightly unexpected treat to see him bringing Oberon alive as a character, not just through dance, but through stage presence. I will save you my rhapsodies about Osipova. I thought she was great in the rehearsal, then she's even better in last night's Dream. There were moments were I wanted the performance to be rewound so I can see that tiny exquisite movement again. The only problem I have with this triple bill is my inability to decide whether I prefer the Osipova cast to do the Dream or Connectome, she and her partners add so much to both. Hoping to catch Olivia Cowley, Nathalie Harrison, Kura and Hirano as the lovers at least once in this run, they were delightfully silly in the dress rehearsal and brought a great sense of both fun and theatrical despair to the roles, combined with the lovely dancing I've come to expect of them.

I think daisydance is probably right about the new package booking playing a role in today's little drama, guess they changed some underlying code or tacked something onto the existing software, and kaboom - pop goes the booking day. At least the apology sounds like a proper apology and not like one of those annoying TFL style apologies, announcing "we're sorry if this causes any inconvenience" to a platform jam packed with stranded passengers....

I did eventually get my booking done, but had to spend so much time getting this done that I now need to work on Sunday to catch up on the things I didn't get done today. Thanks, ROH. Still need to check whether I ended up with double bookings and clashing dates since I ended up putting a couple of things into the basket and checking out immediately instead of zooming through all the dates I was hoping to get in one go. This of course means that they ended up with a dozen of 'individual bookings' and a bunch of £3 donations, since I didn't dare spending extra time deleting the donation after the first attempt of doing that resulted in getting stuck for 30 minutes. Bah.

Does anyone else have problems booking this morning? I managed to get a couple of tickets before the site kept crashing, now the pages to book productions have stopped working and only show a header. It's starting to look like I'll have a nice quiet autumn season.... Not sure how they'll cope with public booking this year.

I think if someone were to offer me Symphony in C before Giselle, I wouldn't say no but I'd be a bit surprised. Though it would feel a little like getting a Tom Stoppard short play in a double bill with Antigone

My appreciation of Sweet Violets would rise by 80% if they could just add some surtitles to sign-post that part of the storyline. Though I found about about 45 other perfectly implausible explanations for the prime minister slapping a Lady to the ground and later popping up in a brothel with her, I think it would help to know what the choreographers intentions were. I'll always appreciate it as an early Liam Scarlett with excellent music, some wonderful pdds and great atmosphere. I hope he can find a way of tidying up the story a bit since I would love to see it without wondering why Little Dot is writing down things and forcefully undressing a painter's assistant friend who had an accident at the hairdressers.

Are they supposed to do all performances? That would seem quite a lot in a handful of days and I am very very bad at guessing which performances are most likely to get cast X

It takes a lot of gumption to change careers at any age, but I have no doubt that someone with so much dedication and self-knowledge will forge other exciting paths for the future. All the best of luck, and thanks for the the lovely memories. I really enjoyed her fierce Myrtha earlier this year

The image of We Are Free (Jeanette Kakareka) is visually stunning, I popped back into the thread a few times just to take another look.

A short synopsis for Sweet Violets would be a very good thing. The ended up reading the information on the Website about Sickert after having watched the performance, and that helped to clarify a things nicely, but still left me wondering about the significance of the night club scene Something like the excellent synopsis for Winter's tale would be lovely to be added to the cast list, or at least the Website if they want to keep down printing costs. Though I'd be happy to pay 50p for a printed short synopsis when walking out of a ballet in slight confusion... ETA: I can't help thinking that I would love to see a collaboration between Wheeldon and Scarlett - Wheeldon to tie the story together, Scarlett for the pdd, costume and music choices.

Wow, this thread is starting to sound like I'd be better off to watch my local driving school teaching the skills of parking in the supermarket carpark than the sad pathetic troupe formerly known as Kirov.

....and there goes one of my Mariinsky Swan Lake tickets. I considered resisting for about 8 seconds, but with those two and a Pita piece I never stood a chance. Bit grumbly about the price, but with only one possible date I wouldn't have the nerve to hang around for potential offers

Well, I learned my lesson to not book the seat next to a restricted view one either. Busses were fine after the performance last night, very little traffic, but I'd leave plenty of time getting there - it's fairly bonkers during rushhour, my normally 30 minute bus took an hour.

Ok, not having luck with my seats recently. For once there isn't a rustler or cougher nearby (hooray!) but I end up sitting next to a guy who is very angry about not being able to lean into my seat to escape his restricted view. Yes, I'm big. I do take up my seat. No, you can't lean into my seat to get a better view, but if you are 'normal sized' yourself you can easily rest your elbows on the armrest (yes, sorry, only your elbows) When he sat down he literally rammed his arm in my side. I know the signal. Lots of guys do that on the tube, expecting the person next to them to fold themselves up so they can take over armrest etc. He continues to wiggle around like mad, testing whether he can see when he leans forward (nope, could have told you that having sat in his restricted view seat plenty of times myself) and then informs me that he will have to lean over into my seat to see properly. Nice. He then proceeds to regularly push his elbow hard over the armrest during the performance, presumably to get me to move out of 'his' way? In the intermission, he complains to the usher (who kindly moved him) that he can't sit comfortable because I'm too large. Now, in the amphi, that would be fair enough - which is why I don't sit in amphi. However, having sat in his seat, I happen to know why he's uncomfortable - it's the pillar which gets in the way of legs and forces you to tilt your head. Or, you know, you could just demand to lean over into someone elses seat and expect them to make space for you. Funnily enough, I have sat in his restricted view seat comfortably enough (Sure, I had a bit of a crick in my neck afterwards) without leaning anywhere near the person next to me whilst achieving a full view of the stage. Even when sitting next to equally hefty people. I guess that makes him larger than me....or unable to understand the concept of restricted view seats. Anyway, long moan, but it kinda spoilt my last Winter's Tale a bit.

Yup, he's definitely dancing up a storm in Faust - I hadn't read the cast sheet yet when I first watched it and was thinking the dancer they had looked really good, got the binoculars out and there was Mr Underwood smiling in a deliciously devious manner. One thing that gets me about ballet in Opera though is the fact that ballerinas seem to get ravished (consent questionable) in most recent productions. Le Vespre Scicilienne, Manon Lescaut, Faust all had a lovely 'let's molest the dancers' sequence. I just hope this is not symptomatic of the way opera directors think of dancers in general....

Hmm, whole new development on aisle seats - people just sitting down on the steps right next to you. Did not expect that at ROH, but person was eventually removed by Usher after the first act. I feel like donating money for a permanent Upper Slips patrol. With cattle prods.

Nope, never, and absolutely not. It's pretty rude of the people asking to swap your aisle seat with something indifferent elsewhere. Would they swap with you if you asked? Doubt it. It's not exactly the end of he world not sitting next to your friend/partner for a couple of hours. They are allowed to meet up in the intermission. I have tapped the offending shoe in a similar situation and there was less squeaking afterwards. Squeaking is bad enough, but when it drowns out the performance it's just ridiculous.

My gripe this week are 'early leavers'. Yes, I know, some people have trains to catch. I always feel sorry for the genuine last train people who have to leave during the last scene change and miss the end of the performance. Some of the more considerate early leavers give their neighbours a heads up that they'll have to clear out ASAP and are both pleasant and organised about it. And then there are the entitled madams and gents of the upper slips, who take in a bit of the clapping and then storm out, showing a lot of attitude, getting cross at people who don't move out of their way fast enough in their opinion and stomp on your foot whilst hitting you in the face with their bag. All of that without a single word, let alone a please or thank you. I'm considering declaring war on them. One more bag in my face and it's on.

I rather liked Lac. If I had to make a choice of only seeing traditional versions of Swan Lake or Lac, traditional it is, but as a piece of fun Lac is great. It probably helped having read a few comments about it beforehand so I could go in and attempt to watch it as if I'd never seen a Swan Lake before. I was very impressed with a lot of their dancers (someone lost their cast list, so I have no idea who they were) and really loved the staging and costume design (minus a few shiny fabrics and colour choices). The story telling worked for me, and I took away the impression that you only mess with women in Monte Carlo at your own risk - the queen taking care of The Black Swan by semi throttling and then kidnapping her, the 'suitors' having their wicked ways with a slightly intimidated prince in the first act. If I moved to Monaco, I'd happily adopt the company as my new home team and I very much hope that the slightly sluggish sales don't mean this was the last time we've seen them in London. The only thing that really didn't work for me was the expectation mismatch for the music for the usual 32 Fouettes - I didn't miss the Fouettes as such, but if you are including something so iconic in your score, you need to do something that changes expectations, instead of garnering a 'meh'. Oh, and if they do come back, I would love them to bring an Orchestra. Or hire one in London.

In retrospect I wish I'd booked on the Anna Karenina instead, suspect I would have been more interested in the story.

I went to see Rodin a couple of days ago. The dancers are amazingly athletic and move beautifully. The 'clay sculptures' are clever, and very interesting the first couple of times around. But I left at the intermission since the piece felt like a non-stop frenzy re-enacting tropes of 'tortured artist' , 'a bit mad' & 'woman trouble' , and I did not feel enough love for the athletic moving about on stage or the nicely displayed chests. I probably took active offence at the 'acting' in the nightmare scene (if that is what is was) where dancers were hamming it up something rotten. Part of me felt that they should have gone one step further and made it a musical. I kept expecting the dancers to break into song. Bourne has the same effect on me.

I'll be fine with that, it's your money and your choice. I'd have more of a problem with people laying into you for having an opinion that differs from theirs.