Timmie

I really really enjoyed the Sofia Swan Lake at Milton Keynes last night. I don’t yet appreciate the finer points of ballet but technically they seemed pretty good and as an emotional experience it was captivating. I really got immersed in the performance of Odette/Odile (Marta Petkova) and was happy to have a happy ending (it’s nice to see a ballet where everyone doesn’t die!). The Corps were superb and I liked the Mexican wave type bow they did at the final curtain call (I’m pleased to say they got plenty of applause). As noted above the national dances were good and I also enjoyed the Act 1 pas de trois very much. The four cygnets were well synchronised too. All-in-all very pleased with my first live Swan Lake and I’ll be interested to see if I enjoy the Bolshoi as much. I looked out for the stage markings but didn’t find them distracting, maybe they have only one roll of sticky tape and the stand out-ishness depends on the stage colour? The MK stage is grey and with grey tape it seemed fine. I watched the Mariinsky ballet blu-ray a few days back and the stage markings are very similar.

Thanks for the reviews both. Glad to hear their Swan Lake is good as I am seeing them at the end of July at Milton Keynes and this will be my first live Swan Lake (rapidly followed by the Bolshoi). Am I correct in assuming the SNB version has low mime content and has the happy ending?

I’m going on the 12th June which is the “Soares Hamilton Nuñez Choe Chapman” version, does anyone know who dances Mitzi Caspar and Bratfisch in this casting?

I've just had the usual post-visit survey from the ROH and instead of the usual questions on did you buy an ice cream etc., there were a lot of questions on individual aspects of the performance, hopefully they'll take notice of our comments.

Totally agree with your comments Mayerling79, you have highlighted the positive aspects. I just wish they could come up with an artistically satisfying way of doing the projections totally behind the dancers. On a related note I assume Mayerling (the ballet that is!) doesn't use gauze screens, and does anyone know if the Bolshoi Bayadere uses gauze screens?

Bear in mind with this I am a complete ballet noob so I may not appreciate some of the subtleties of ballet and choreography, but I really did not enjoy Raven Girl. The final dance between the Raven Girl and the Raven Prince was exquisite and the scenes with the Raven Girl, her mum and the Postman were also enjoyable but the rest of it left me somewhat unmoved. It was also one of those ballets that had the gauze curtain down at the front the whole time to project the effects on. The problem with this is that my eyes are trying to focus on something that’s deliberately blurred and this is really tiring. Combine this with dancers dressed in black and a low level of lighting means it was quite hard to watch at times. A few thoughts that went through my mind during the performance, “OK it’s a slow start but it’ll pick up soon”, “I really shouldn’t be watching the orchestra so much” and “I wonder what the time is?”. Having said all that don’t let me put anybody off, I heard plenty of positive comments during the interval, so it may be just that it’s not the type of ballet for me. A complete contrast when the curtain went up after the interval, no gauze, bright lights, blazing white tutus and all my favourite ballerinas. Loved it. Worth the money for those 36 minutes.

I was sitting on the reverse side of the stage, near the front, after the first 5 or 10 minutes I thought I was going to go home with a stiff neck from looking right all the time, but then the action moved to the centre so all was well. I certainly would have been unhappy with some of the seats though. Ah, I missed that, thanks. From where I was sitting I couldn't see anything in that corner so I had no idea what was going on!

That's pretty much what I thought.

Very similar to the shed in my neighbour's garden...

I enjoyed this immensely last night. All my previous ballets have been viewed from high up in the Amphitheatre in the ROH so I guess a lot of the enjoyment for me came from the much closer involvement, with the dancers just being a few rows in front. When Gretel made a break for it but was then caught by the Witch and carried off with her arms stretched towards the audience she seemed to be looking straight at me and it was a great temptation to jump up and save her! I especially liked the use of the lighting to pause the action to allow little side dances, the music was good at the time but fairly forgettable now. All in all very entertaining - even the false start at the beginning when we had to wait twenty minutes while the computer was re-booted .

Hi Janet, great thread idea and an interesting post. I’m at the other end of the scale to you. I bought a Blu Ray ballet/opera sampler a couple of years back, liked the ballet (not sure about the opera…) and started buying ballet Blu Rays. This year I decided I should go to some live performances, but thought they must be expensive. Had a look at the ROH website and found they are quite reasonable. So far I’ve been to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, La Bayadere twice and have tickets for several more at ROH (couldn’t resist the Bolshoi) plus a Swan Lake at Milton Keynes. I think I may have an addiction though as my next ticket is for 24th May but I keep trying to find something between then and now.

Hi A frog, that's great info., thanks. I'll look out for it on You Tube. I'm really looking forward to this now, my first World Premiere!

Will do. I am glad it's paired with Symphony in C as that should be less of a challenge for me (ballet noob). Oh, and thanks for the welcome :-)

Thanks, that does help. It sounds like the author of the book doesn't know much about what the ballet is going to be like either!

Hi all, I’m going to Raven Girl in a few weeks and I find I enjoy a ballet much more if I do some reading up or blu ray watching in advance, all I can find about Raven Girl is the book description on Amazon: “So begins the tale of a postman who encounters a fledgling raven while on the edge of his route and decides to take her home. The unlikely couple falls in love and conceives a child - an extraordinary raven girl trapped in a human body. The raven girl feels imprisoned by her arms and legs and covets wings and the ability to fly. Betwixt and between, she reluctantly grows into a young woman, until one day she meets an unorthodox doctor who is willing to change her” Any ideas on how I can find out more about the ballet itself so I know what I’m watching? Thanks.