Coated

I saw the performance on the 1st (and met Sabine for some nice interval chats) and was quite taken with the Cranko version. The scene where Juliet is lowered into the crypt is particularly stunning, I thought its staging was a masterpiece of theatricality. The Carnival King and his slightly bonkers entourage was fun, and I might prefer that to the Macmillan version (would need to see the Cranko another 8 times to decide ). Murilo Gabriel made it all look easy and high octane at the same time. I guess I'm a little spoiled with excellent casts from RB and BRB, but I didn't really get engaged with the performance and characters like Tybalt barely registered for me. I do love Gary Avis eating the scenery as Tybalt and accept that not all Tybalts will be that fulsome, but I expect a little more drama than I got that night. Polina Semionova and Alejandro Virelles were not an ideal match in my opinion, starting with him being too short for her which made some of the lifts look very earthbound and a little clumsy to me. When I saw Virelles in his last performances at the ENB, he seemed very disengaged on stage. Thankfully he appears more switched on with Staatsballet Berlin, but I still couldn't connect to his Romeo. There was some fine dancing, and I'd like to see a bit more or Semionova one day, but I won't race back to Berlin to see more R&Js in a hurry. (I'll be saving up my pennies to see their fantastic Bayadere again instead) @squadron I think Mercutio takes a bit too long to die in most (all?) productions partially due to the music that no one seems keen to cut for that scene, but for the R&J death scene it depends on the cast whether it's breathtaking drama or flopping about with additional stabbing.

My eyes, my eyes. It burns. I can't believe anyone would design a page that image heavy and content light in terms of screen space. The new layout shows the grand total of one (1) event per 'horizontal iPad' screen vs six (6) events on the old layout, meaning I have to scroll 6 times as much to see the same amount of information. That's just daft. DAFT.

There's an interesting New York Times article from 1978 about Baryshnikov's Don Q and how he chopped and changed the ballet. His changes might have been more drastic that the average new production, but it gives a nice flavour of how ballet develops over the years https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/21/archives/dance-view-ballet-theaters-new-don-quixote.html There's also an excerpt from the Don Q program on the ROH site https://www.roh.org.uk/news/the-spirit-of-don-quixote-a-history-of-the-ballet The Petipa society also has a fair bit on Don Q history https://petipasociety.com/don-quixote/

I think we might need to qualify what 'not sold well' means. There are currently 111 tickets out of 2256 available for the last performance, or just under 5% of tickets. That is a very very good number of tickets sold and nothing that requires papering. Yes, the RB can sell out a Nut 4 month before the performance, but that doesn't mean that 2 Pigeons is selling badly if it's scraping in near capacity 9 days before a performance.

😭

Perfectly entendre free. I just couldn't resist pouncing on @Dawnstar on behalf of the Scarlett fan club (non-rabid division)

*pounces* (Sorry, couldn't resist)

As long as there is strictly no Acosta choreography, this could be good. I hope they put a clause in the contract.

I hate the urge of some spanish speaking people to communicate at decibels slightly louder than a freight train. Especially great when they surround you in a last minute reseating manoeuvre and then succeed in entirely drowning out the second act overture at ENB's swan lake, merry shouting across 2 rows.

Shale Wagman danced a very nice neapolitan this evening - at least I think it was him, since Ken Surahashi was listed as doing the Pd3, but we had McCormick instead. He was very elegant, and combined zest with beautifully controlled landings. The ENB really has some beautiful young dancers coming up

The giant beetles etc are part of the Hansel and Gretel production, which is cute when you have seen the production, but likely to leave people baffled when they haven't.

I love the black Swan invasion - worth every penny IMHO

It would be very useful if the ROH could put up a well sized notice board showing either the full cast or just changes, or put up some easily detectable signs in more than one location with the changes. The current method of small notices on (some) busy desks or showing something on screens that is not seen by all attendees is the main problem for me. There are no screens when coming in via bow street and then going to stalls or stalls circle. Not everyone has the time to wander the halls at the off-chance that they might find some information. I'm perfectly happy to not have change slips as long as the information is easily available elsewhere. In terms of environmentally friendly, it would be much more beneficial if the ROH stopped printing cast lists, programmes and magazines on glossy paper. And stopped sending random appeal letters that could just as well be emails.

No matinee at ROH on the 8th means one less clash with SFB at Sadler's Wells though, so that's a bonus

The ticket has now found a good new home

Ouch, I completely forgot about my Swan Lake ticket tonight, just coincidentally spotted the eticket when I checked which SFB tickets I had booked this morning. Phew. It's Bozier instead of Ball tonight, pretty chuffed that I get to see a cast different from the other ticket I booked.

I have one balcony row A aisle seat for sale (£12.70, eticket) for the currently sold out ENB Swan Lake performance on Jan 3rd, decent enough seat but not for the very tall. Classed as restricted legroom and restricted view, there is a safety bar though I tend to comfortably view the stage below the bar without loosing any of the stage.

Tickets are now sold

Thanks for linking to this. I've not seen Perm Ballet before and rather enjoyed their Nut on a wintry Sunday afternoon. Would love to see more of the company some day, they looked rather interesting to me. The flower costumes were quite something, perhaps a bit bulky but on a level of kitsch that I enjoy entirely unironically.

I have e-tickets for D33/34 for the Patineurs triple on Jan 2 for resale (£6 each) PM if interested

Ah, the power of Muntagirov. Made a friend watch Swan Lake on Christmas Day (not entirely involuntary, but it involved a fair amount of sweet talking and promises to switch off after the second act if she can't take it) and she started watching with what I can only class as derogative comments about Vadim's princely handsomeness (I didn't even strangle her for the comments...very cristmassy of me, I though). 2 acts later she is glued to the screen demanding act 3 and declaring Vadream to be most marvellously glorious

It would be disappointing if the Russians stopped coming or only brought Swan Lakes in future years but with the Bolshoi and SFB visiting this summer, a glorious (well, I assume they will be) run of ENB Swans and Manons coming up and scheduled London residences for Ballet Black, ENB, BRB, NB and other visitors at Sadlers, I don't feel I'd have much time to squish in performances outside of London even if I had a larger budget.

One SCS (D46) for sale, 20 Dec matinee at 2.30pm, e-ticket PM me if interested

tickets now returned to box office

I have SCS D44/45 for sale for tonight. Prefer to sell as pair, etickets + bank transfer (no paypal)