Diandri

Gary Avis is excellent but Derek Rencher created the role of GM for MacMillan & was marvellous for many years. The most 'interesting' interpretation of the part I've ever seen came in a show back in 2003/4 with Sylvie Guillem & Laurent Hilaire where act 2 party scene came with a very prominently performed slow lick of Manon's shoe to emphasis a foot fetish, it was very sexually graphic & much talked about in the interval, but very definite dramatic 'choices'!!

Not sure if this is any help; try the website Arenapal.com as it has some of his pictures to buy in a variety of sizes (it's not cheap, but there are some lovely images). You can also search by dancer if you know who you're looking for, I searched Bussell & it brought up all images by all photographers etc.

I saw this at the Saturday evening performance & was very impressed with the overall effectiveness of the production. It makes a pleasing change to see something intellectually demanding instead of endless fairy/princess type shows & reveals what sort of project the young dancers themselves are interested in making. Loved Kristen McNally's choreography- it may be the most 'conventional' style she has presented & proves just how varied her work can be & it looks so good on Campbell & Hayward. Wasn't so keen on the music as it reminded me very strongly of work by 2 other composers, but it was well played. Hayward & Campbell are brilliant dancers & excel here. Speech-in-dance performance is hard to do well, but to their credit there are enough brilliant moments to easily outweigh the few garbled, poorly miked bits & I suspect this will improve with each performance in the run. I think this show will be most enjoyed by those audience members who also watch & enjoy drama at the National, Donmar, Almeida etc rather than those hoping for pointe work or fouettes. More please!!

I hope Phoenix can recruit somebody very exciting to take this company forward. What I did find a bit depressing is that they have a larger board of trustees than they do dancers (a total of 8 dancers featured on their website).

Just had a look on amazon at Ed Watson's book that already has a preview of the first few pages & the photos do look amazing. It's £40 & looks well worth the money - I've pre-ordered my copy. Also just had a very pleasant hour looking at the Getty pics website & found a delicious photo of Ed Watson, Thiago Soares & Eric Underwood at a society bash a few years ago, they all looked smart & sexy so thanks to Getty for that!!

Darcey Bussell was promoted at 20 as well, first night of Prince of the Pagodas if I recall. The late Beryl Grey debuted in Swan Lake at 15 & then as Giselle on her 17th birthday!

Quite right. I only saw her dance live twice - as Lady Capulet in Derek Deane's R&J in the round at the RAH & in Bourne's Swan Lake. However, when I first started watching ballet in the 1990s I came across a full set of Anthony Crickmay's Anastasia photos that I treasure to this day & I was hooked as they are just magnificent & he really captured her beautifully. She did dance Manon as well, 6 performances I believe which I would love to have seen & by the sound of it she really made it her own role. I'm very sad to hear of her passing following on so soon from Beryl Grey.

Indeed, Mayara reminds me of Queen Mary of Teck, but with a glorious smile.

As per the Kenneth MacMillan website: "At the ballet's end, Anna is possessed of iron certainty, she is indeed Anastasia & claims the tribute that is hers by right. Anastasia's problem of identity, MacMillan explained, is not one for herself. "Always, throughout all the mental & physical confusion, she knows she is the Grand Duchess. Her tragedy is convincing the rest of the world". I've always thought her final posture as she circles the stage on the bed makes that abundantly clear.

Hi Dawnstar - your first paragraph had me wondering whether the ROH front of house staff currently get any negative feedback from disappointed customers in such seats having paid a goodly sum of cash, at the intervals or end of show? If I was a new ROH customer I don't think I'd return or even be tempted to splash more cash on a more expensive seat & if prices increased even more in future do management expect the hourly paid ushers to placate angry punters who may have been expecting a 'world class performance' instead of a restricted view. The artform rankings question is so sad in so many ways I despaired into a glass of wine. As you say it depends on which opera, ballets, plays etc & also venues, casting, creatives, conductors, distance to nearest tube or train(!) Pondered telling them that I've booked opera tickets on the basis of Paule Constable doing the lighting or plays at the National designed by my fave designers, but thought it probably wouldn't compute with their algorithms...

I was too angry to do the opera option after the ballet as the feeling I got from the ballet pricing is that they are going to push prices as far as they can regardless of how anyone responds to this survey. I feel ROH is already overpriced even for my personal favourite ballets & have reduced consumption accordingly, if £200 per ticket is their goal it is only a short matter of time before it starts edging £300 because opera will increase to £400 etc. How management will argue such prices are not elitist & exclusive to a small minority will be interesting. The knock-on effect of moving to a 'once a year type treat' instead of maintaining regular attendees means less varied rep for audiences & dancers because you can only charge those prices for high profile, usually full length ballets. One only has to look to the opera programming & its endless runs of Traviatas, Butterflies & Bohemes in place of the rarer jewels to see how the ballet rep could end up.

Hi Candleque, glad you benefitted!! The offer email appeared to be a bog standard ROH email list as I stopped being a Friend a few years back & now only attend for specific ballets / casts. & oddly enough I'd booked for 3 shows of Mayerling recently in the grand tier. Being suspicious I'd say they targeted 'recent high spenders' in the hope that it would tempt bookings. It is poor form that they appear not to have included friends in the recipients & I'd be fascinated to know if a friend created a new email address & joined the ordinary mailing list whether it would result in better discount offers, if it did ROH have really turned to the dark side!!

Iga Swiatek impressed me last night against Osario; her speed & dexterity with her feet was phenomenal, let alone anything to do with racket & ball. Clearly she's on a mission to win this slam & cement her number one ranking. On a sadder note Nadal looks to be heading the way of Federer after his defeat to Mackenzie McDonald.

In my email inbox this evening was a ROH marketing blast regarding a 25% discount for Sleeping Beauty for shows 17, 18 & 19th Jan so it looks like they've overpriced this run as there are lots of empty seats & the code appears to apply to any price bracket (but I haven't tried the really cheap seats). Code is AURORA25.

Yes, that's how they serve the tea. On the occasion I made the mistake of ordering it the first cup came with the previous customer's lipstick still visible.