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Thiago Soares was my first Onegin and this ballet has drawn me to attending ballet (I had only been to the Nutcracker) and to the company. Before then, I never realised ballet could be *sexy* Lately I lost my interest in the RB (or going to the ROH more specifically, so expensive yet so uncomfortable) but still was determined to see him. Thiago was just as wonderful as when I first saw him in this ballet, and I'll miss him very much. 

Hi, I'm interested in buying one if you will sell them separately.

I have an amphitheatre ticket (S60) priced at £25. I'm seeing the performance also.

I don't want to bring up the experience of the other poster too often, but SMBallet's experience is one example of 'reinforcing racist attitude' isn't it? I don't think just beating up someone for their race a racist act (which BTW is not unheard of occurrence in the streets of London, the capital of the most tolerant of countries). I'm probably mixing things up here to which other posters are responding, but let me just clarify that I wasn't merely referring to that someone *too PC* may feel squeamish watching this ballet. Also it's just bad taste to display overt fetish about the different cultures, especially when the power dynamics only flows one way.

As the ballet will never be shelved anyway, at least what the presenters at the cinema screening said last week could be re-iterated each time it's up.

To be fair, La Bayadere is not one of the most offensive ballets I've attended, I really don't like many of MacMillan's narrative ballets where most female roles seem to be harlots, prostitutes, etc.. 

13 hours ago, SMballet said:

 

To answer LinMM's question, oh no no, the only thing that really bothered me was that I couldnt come up with a suitably witty response to the lady at the time , I just muttered something polite and fled. I wasted a good ten minutes afterwards wishing I'd said something witty, like "oh I'm from Calcutte not St Petersburg so why would this make me home sick," (And now, having seen the hilarious elephant clip above, I wish I'd said "I'd have felt even more home sick if there had been an elephant for Solor.'")

But in the main, I think that , while in the UK people are well educated enough to know that *of course* it's a fantasy world that says more about 19th Century high Russian cultural mores than anything else, that is not the case in the US. 

 

I can 100% relate to your experience re. wasting time to come back with something witty, when I at the same time fully know the senseless person already forgot what she/he had said..

I think it's too much to expect from the average everyday British person to *of course* know all that about the 19th Century Russian Fantasy (this BTW is what Darcey Bussell said)'. This forum I found is pretty much an outlier (in a good way) and living in Britain I come across everyday racism pretty frequently so no reason to assume Brits are any more educated than Americans (I'm not saying I'm above all that). Also that's why I think this topic is a valid and relevant one whenever there's a staging of La Bayadere w/o someone screaming PC going mad! 

6 hours ago, SylviaLiu said:

I don't think any of these ballet is meant to belittle any culture, perhaps quite the opposite, just because Petipa (and other choreographers) were so fascinated by the different cultures, that we get to see all of these character dances today. Of course, what they knew of that time was limited, and there are certain level of fantasy and imagination involved. But anyway, a ballet is a ballet, not a documentary or national archive, can't all of us just sit back and relax?

 

I get what you're saying, but the emphasis on 'different' cultures (which may be better described by 'otherness') sometimes tires me to death I must say. How many Austrians for example get asked about their homesickness at the performances of Mayerling? How many Danish get bothered at the performances of Hamlet? The list goes on and it shows clearly this works only one way.

I was also blown away by Nunez/Osipova/Muntagirov but at the same time, it's so a generic story  in a generic format only spiced up by 'Oriental' elements and of course, wonderful dance, that I find it difficult to follow all the discussions about character development, none of ballet characters usually makes sense to me! I can and do enjoy the rapport between dancers.

I am looking for two tickets for RB Ashton triple bill on June 10 anywhere in the theatre. Thank you.