GTL

Or they could use the surtitle equipment as per opera.

(Did they do that for the "Seven Deadly Sins" ballet sung by Martha Wainwright some years ago? Or did ENB do it with "Lieder eines fahrendes Gesellen"? Can't remember).

  

Don't people want to watch the dancing rather than look at a surtitle screen?

A quick glance upwards every ten seconds or so then eyes back to the stage: they would have a choice ☺ . I'm assuming the financial cost would be minimal.

Or they could use the surtitle equipment as per opera.

(Did they do that for the "Seven Deadly Sins" ballet sung by Martha Wainwright some years ago? Or did ENB do it with "Lieder eines fahrendes Gesellen"? Can't remember).

Thanks BBB. Glad to see that they intend to keep the intervals to 20 minutes each.

It would be helpful to have running times up on the ROH website, they must have an idea by now whether they'll be paying overtime! "The Four Temperaments" lasts about half an hour and "Song of the Earth" just over an hour, if I recall previous runs correctly, so I'm anticipating a three-hour evening.

Sylvie Guillem. The half-Kenyan Francesca Hayward, one of the Royal Ballet's most promising. Surely by now people have got used to ballerinas who don't look like England's own part-Brazilian Margot Fonteyn!

Now on BBC iplayer, link here, it ends the programme.     http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b054302t

See the BBC iplayer, "Newsnight" of 27th February, a scientist explains how ambient light affects colour perception.  It's about 20 minutes in, then at the end of the programme you also get an excerpt from "In the middle, somewhat elevated" which English National Ballet are about to perform at Sadler's Wells. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b054302t

According to a cast change notice I found at the interval, Vadim Muntagirov was taken ill late on Wednesday afternoon: best wishes to him for a speedy recovery.   Having seen his spectacular "beau gosse" solo at ENB's Diaghilev programme, where it raised the roof, I can understand why one wouldn't attempt it unless fully fit.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed all the performances,  though the loudness of the music for "Qualia" rather spoilt that one for me.  Kenneth Macmillan's "Carousel" duet with Sarah Lamb and Carlos Acosta and Nicholas Hytner's filmed introduction describing its creation and Toby Spence's Lensky, both new to me, were my emotional highlights, also the closing moments of the "Diamonds" pas de deux, familiar though it is.   Sonia Yoncheva and BrynTerfel got funnier and funnier throughout their "Elisir d' amore" duet, perhaps spurred on by the sparring of Natalia Osipova and Steven McRea in the preceding "Tchaikovsky pas de deux".  I was as much impressed by McRea's (unexpectedly) self-effacing presentation of Osipova at their curtain-call as the dancing.  

 

Having heard the Mozart Queen of Night party-trick played in a shop earlier that day and actually wished that it was ending the gala rather than "Nessun dorma",  I was delighted to have that wish fulfilled!

 

Turn of the night for me was the Royal Ballet School's Grand Defilé, which I reckon won the award for the loudest applause.

According to the ROH website, there is something else to look forward to: "The Royal Ballet School in its entirety will dance the Grand Défilé".

Edited to inclue the link (I hope!) http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/a-gala-celebration-life-reimagined

The ROH website is currently headed as follows:

"WEBSITE ALERT: INTERMITTENT NETWORK CONNECTIVITY ISSUES AT OUR ISP MAY CAUSE DISRUPTION TO PURCHASES, PLEASE KEEP TRYING."

 

It wasn't showing when I logged in on the trusty ipad (using the Chrome browser with my email account open in Safari) at 10 am to do a subscription booking for 2014/15 period 3.

I proceeded problem-free until I hit the "pay now" button and was taken immediately to the next page to await payment confirmation - and waited with the internet connection symbol spinning for nearly an hour. Eventually I thought to look in my email account and found that an "order confirmed" email had arrived within seconds of my pressing the "pay now" button. Abandoning the still-loading payment page on the ROH website for my ROH account upcoming performances page, the relevant bookings were showing with their order confirmation number.

So all was well but I thought that if it spares anyone the anxious hour I had this morning, it's worth posting here.

Can any? I find you have to seek out a proper cathedral choir to hear really good singing by children.

I watched Ms Cuthbertson struggle through Lilac Fairy in one of her early performances and had big doubts about her technique, Italian fouettés being one of my benchmarks as a non-expert viewer - but I was pleasantly surprised when I saw her a few years later in Balanchine's "Ballo della Regina", reputed to be fiendishly difficult. Only she and Ms Nuñez performed as the lead woman that season and were coached by Merrill Ashley, so I guess it passed muster with the Balanchine Trust!

How frustrating and unsettling for you, I hope the cause turns out to be some trivial technicality, but I suppose the first question to ask is whether you have any Facebook friends who would consider a dancer's costume offensive, or ballet itself indecent?

Next, are any of your friends youngsters whose parents might have set automatic filters on their computers which can't distinguish between dancers and the nasty stuff - if such a thing is possible, I don't actually know much about Facebook or computers.

In any case, it seems strange that Facebook are not able to intervene, assess and overrule on the grounds that the reporting is unjustified.

I struggle with the concept that the ROH ladies loos were designed, full stop. Likewise the cloakroom area.

Thinking of you and your aunt, CharlieChuck, and hoping for good news of Dexter.

Before we move off theological trivia, can I just say that the Episcopal Church is the the Scottish version of the Church of England but the Church of Scotland the dominant "national" church and patronised by the royal family north of the border although Presbyterian in style. God's house has many mansions, to paraphrase John 14.2 !

I try to cope by looking for the positives. You know that you've achieved a lot lately. You've recognised that the bully who is trolling your blog is a horrible person and you know not to engage with people like that in future: however bad your life seems, theirs is worse if they can't stop themselves from resorting to such malice.

 

Financial problems are such a common problem nowadays and a huge burden to carry as it all escalates out of control - so you can start to take control by contacting one of the advisory agencies NOW.

 

Advice NIDebt Action NIPhone: 0800 917 4607Text ‘Action’ to 81025Email: debt@adviceni.net

www.debtaction-ni.net

 

Citizens Advice Northern Irelandhttp://www.citizensadvice.co.uk/

 

Debtline NIStepChange Debt CharityPhone: 0800 138 1111www.debtlineni.org

 

Housing Rights ServiceMortgage Debt Advice ServicePhone: 0300 323 0310

www.housingadviceni.org/repossession-portal-home.html

 

Rent and rates arrears advicePhone: 028 9024 5640

www.housingadviceni.org

 

The situation with your aunt: I don't know how near you are located to her but I hope you are able to make the most of the time you have left together and in your position I suspect I would delay a decision on Glasgow to the last minute, with the inevitable financial consequences. Should the worst then happen while you're away, the inflexible Northern Ireland custom of burial two days after death does mean that close relatives sometimes miss the funeral but that seems to be understood and accepted.

 

As for poor Dexter the cat, let's just hope for the best and that with the help of those advisory agencies above you can tackle the problem of the vet's bills.

 

Things seem their worst in the middle of the night so I wanted to let you know before morning that yes, you are going through a very bleak patch but in seeking professional help, financial and medical, you can pull yourself through it. Others more experienced and knowledgable than me can give more useful guidance.

 

 

As a paid-up fan of the V&A, I would recommend Covent Garden for your ballet-mad young companions as the V&A Theatre galleries aren't currently showing much ballet stuff.  I was there a few weeks ago, Margot Fonteyn' s Vienna Black Swan tutu and Suzanne Farrell's Bugaku tutu were on display but I suspect that they would probably get more of a thrill out of the ROH (even just the exterior) and surrounding dance shops, or you could search out the dance-related pictures in the National Gallery or National Portrait Gallery.

On the other hand, if they have a general interest in Theatre, the V&A would be fine for an hour or two.

Also, the V&A  has a gallery on the ground floor devoted to historic street dress - I initially wrote everyday dress but a lot is designer so that's not quite the right word.  

Looking at this from another angle, are the two so totally opposite? A choreographer matches patterns in 3D to a rhythm. A dancer demonstrates spatial awareness and counts, counts, counts. Is it possible to excel as a dancer without an innate sense of order and symmetry? There's even Ashton's "Scènes de Ballet", inspired by geometry.

Seriously, (puns now over), the link between maths and music is recognised - has there been much investigation into the extent to which our early ancestors' experience of dance contributed to the evolution of Mathematics?

In the Doing Dance forum, Ballet training in the UK, post 301, our new member tutu anna describes the situation in Japan where in the absence of a national school the youngsters rely on competitions to get the best training for a professional career, which makes me wonder how many brilliant dancers would we miss out on if they did not have these opportunities.

Of course it's down to the judging panel to determine the outcome so I would look to them to maintain aesthetic as well as technical standards rather than a TV audience. (The influence of award sponsors and their expectations of TV exposure are perhaps a factor but not something I have enough knowledge to be able to comment on.)

Tonight's show 24 July is at the Official London Theatre TKTS booth in Leicester Square, £28 for £49.50 and £55 seats.

Given the habitual and, to an extent, understandable uncertainty over casting, I take my chance and don't normally book until they arrive in London.

I had no problems booking at 10am, though I shouldn't assume anything until my confirmation email arrives.

Confirmation email in 10:56. I didn't challenge the ROH system too much, just my bank balance.

The Official London Theatre ticket booth in Leicester Square is offering "Le Coq d'Or" £65 seats for £28 for Thursday 10 July.

.......The thing I love most about these articles is the argument that audiences used to be noisy during Shakespeare time. Well, they also watched bear-bating, didn't allow women on stage and the most expensive seats were the ones away from the unwashed stench of the adorably 'engaged' crowd.

Well said.

Plus, alternative street-theatre in the form of public executions (beheading, pressing to death, burning at the stake, slow strangulation, live disembowelment) was freely available. It must have taken a lot to engage those audiences. Things have moved on for most of us.

Afterthought: actually, I believe the crowd were often quite restrained and respectful at the more outrageous executions, so they had their own social code of sorts. Then again, I forgot to mention the acceptability of emptying one's chamber pot from a height into the street - doubt they bothered to queue for the loo the way we do, so where do theatres set the limits for self-expression?