Coated

I wish I hadn't read these last few posts, I've now gone off and acquired a ticket for the Soares Mayerling and pretty much blew through my yearly ballet allowance. Soares has been amazing in everything I have recently seen him in, and it's my firm believe that he could partner a tailor's dummy and make it look amazing.

 

I saw Watson on Saturday, and never mind his dancing - he managed to give off such palpable despair just sitting at the table that I forgot to watch Bratfisch.

Ugh, had a new one today - very strong bad breath gently coughed into the back of my neck in regular intervals. There's no mint in the known universe strong enough to sort that breath out, and that's a lot worse for the breather than me, but it would have been nice if he'd used a tissue or at least his hand instead of blowing it straight towards me.

I liked Ravengirl despite the overly long cycling / letter sorting sequence at the start, but they really need to sort out the lighting / net curtain effect. I sat closeby enough to be able to see most things, but I wouldn't even want to contemplate seeing this from the back of the stalls or the amphitheatre. The one thing that strangely annoyed me was the lettering taking forever and a day to resolve. It wasn't that interesting or informative, so please, just get on with it.

 

The overall imagery was strong (and I can see why it's not everyone's cup of tea), and with a fair bit of editing this could work really well. Cutting the first 10 minutes and replacing them with sad postman dancing might help, as would cutting down on some of the gimmicks. It did feel a bit like ballet-does-multimedia. Happened in theatre, so it was probably only a question of time until it hit other art forms. Though thankfully the theatre seems to have recovered from the worst excesses, so there's hope.

 

Seeing it again next week and looking forward to it.

 

Symphony in C just made smile from ear to ear, it was picture perfect tonight. I think I might be turning into a Soares/Nunez groupie, they were just delicious.

 

Don't think they'd be strong enough - it's those darned EU regulations! (she says, trying to see by the light of probably a 15-watt bulb at 1 am!)

I have a few old 100w bulbs floating around to get around the 15w energy savers when I actually need to see something instead of feeling it. Not that I'm trying to put thoughts into any choreographer's head, I'm not ready for invisible ballet.

Same here, I've booked a few performances particularly for new stuff after seeing the photos.

 

I don't tend to buy programmes one way or the other since I'll never look at them again once I'm home (and often enough they won't even include images of the cast you saw on the day) and not having cast pictures online won't change that but I will miss the chance to find out who Corps girl #28 was. And then maybe booking a performance where she has a bigger role, cause hey, wasn't she the one who I looked up after she did a nice variation in ballet x?

 

I really appreciate the 'insight' clips ROH posts on youTube, and I can understand if they decide they don't want to lose copyright, editorial input or commercial opportunities for pictures not published by them. Perhaps they could look at including the galleries on their own site, posted by 'approved' photographers so they can retain editorial input and control release dates of images.

 

Losing the galleries altogether would be a shame.

I'm considering posting some spare lightbulbs to the ROH before I go to see it, in case they meant to light it up but ran out of bulbs.

Potter's Pastilles really do the trick, combined with a quick coughing bout during noisy scenes or clapping. If I can figure it out, why is it difficult for others to at least try?

 

Saying that, to my utter shame I managed to switch my phone on accidentally during a performance tonight by leaning my elbow on my bag. Thankfully the battery was low already, so it just sputtered for a second and went straight off again.

 

The thing that drives me mad are people leaning forwards and blocking my sight line . Recently sat in the Gods for an opera and saw no more than a third of the back of the stage due to a very tall guy leaning forwards for the entire show. I've sat in those seats a lot, and this was the first time that I could really not see a thing.

 

If it is someone right in front of me, I will ask them if they could lean less, usually in the intermission if it's not too bad. Most people seem to be alright about it, but I'll never forget the guy who offered to break my friend's finger if she tabbed him on the shoulder gain. Lovely behaviour for a Christmas Nutcracker....

I loved Steven McRea's Sandman, 3 parts creepy, one part sad, 100% awesome. Sure, there is room for improvement for the overall production, at the same time I liked the storytelling and quietly threatening atmosphere.

 

I wasn't too bowled over by the music. At times it was fitting, but there seemed to be long periods of the same motif being repeated over and over with little variation.

 

For the first 20 minutes I couldn't quite shake the expectation that they'll either break into song or start talking any minute.

I haven't really got anything to add about the Pennefather/Hamilton matinee on Friday that hasn't been said before - it was amazing and deeply involving and I'm just plain flabbergasted at how much I loved it. I've just gone off and booked for their other performance on the 10th of June.

 

And because I'm very very lucky, I even managed to get a decent seat again without having to sell my soul.

I saw the matinee with Soares, Kobayashi and Choe yesterday. Soares managed a nice stage chemistry with Kobayashi despite the last minute switcheros for the performance and he and Choe made the dancing look easy.

 

I wasn't too keen on Choe prior to this performance, but I now very much get why people love to watch her dance. Her dancing and acting (she does haughty and somewhat evil very convincingly and then looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth) was perfect for the role and she got a huge applause at curtain call.

 

The orchestra was also in fine form and I could go and see La Bayadere just for the violin solo.

 

The 'wild men' and their dreadlocks were a bit distracting and some point I just watched the furry mass hanging of their heads and started to wonder about moths and other creatures instead of watching the actual dancing.