alison

Three debuts tonight: I thought Naghdi virtually pitch-perfect as the gauche Tatiana in Acts I and II, although not quite as convincing as princess, wife and mother in the Act III ballroom scene. She certainly gave everything to that final scene. Anna Rose O'Sullivan danced beautifully (goes without saying?) as Olga: I do tend to prefer to see a little foreshadowing in Act I of her heedlessness in Act II so that it doesn't come as a total surprise - but if it was there I missed it. Joseph Sissens danced equally beautifully as Lensky, but seemingly without really using the choreography to tell us much about the character or his feelings: it's his first major role of that type, and I'm sure it will come - after all, as someone reminded me this evening, Bonelli's acting skills weren't exactly impressive when he first joined the company, and look at him now The corps de ballet aren't always making the most of their little "cameo" moments at various times during the ballet, but I'm assuming they are more or less all new to their roles, and that that's the price you have to pay for the work being out of the repertoire for 5 years.

Would someone like to tell us about the other rehearsal as well? EDIT: I've move Richard's and my posts from the "The Cellist" insight thread to this one, hence the reference to duplication.

Ditto. Loved the name when I first spotted it

Perhaps someone who saw the initial stages of the work in its Los Angeles run might be able to comment?

Good initiative - but why's so much of the text struck through?

And it's not only La Bohème - even La Traviata has lots of unsold seats too! That's unheard of. For the performance I've just sampled, virtually the whole of Stalls Circle A is unsold - and this is for a performance next week. Perhaps people are balking at paying over £200 per seat?! Lucky students, I guess. In past years, such a number of unsold tickets would have been offered up at discounted rates on somewhere like Travelzoo, Time Out offers etc., but I've not noticed that happening recently - does anyone know otherwise? Surely better to sell them cheaper than have loads of students snap them up at a tenner or so? I dread to think what the ROH's books are going to look like soon if this continues.

I don't even know who *is* cast any more, with the paucity of information the ROH sends out.

Trusting that won't get cancelled as well ...

That's good to know. If I could persuade SWR to do some bargain fares I'd be down there like a shot!

When I've returned tickets to the box office I've received a message saying that the QR code has been cancelled so the ticket will no longer work, or something along those lines.

Tickets now spoken for

Blimey. Not that I'm a fan of Bohème at the best of times, but I thought it'd sell better than that. Are those the dates with the second cast, though? Could it be that the ROH has annoyed its regular operagoers to the same extent as the balletgoers?

I'm not sure whether I shall be able to make these two rehearsals tomorrow, so thought I'd see if anyone else would like the tickets. For those of you who don't know, these are ballet rehearsals of current and forthcoming rep which are conducted on a temporary floor in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, with seating around, and each last probably 40-45 minutes. There's no guarantee of what will be rehearsed, although in the past my experience has been that it tends to be pas de deux and solos, or other pieces involving a small number of dancers. Repetiteurs so far in the ones I've been to have included Darcey Bussell, Carlos Acosta and Edward Watson! The seats are up the stairs in the Hamlyn balcony, where you sit at one of the tables and probably have to look through or over a pane of glass, but at least there should be no heads in the way, as can happen in the rows of seats downstairs! The seat numbers are in the high D's, which suggests that you're likely to be facing the dancers rather than watching from the back. £8 each. Please PM me if you're interested in either. They're e-tickets, so I can send them across easily.

Watching the 1978 Prologue fairy variations in the link which Fonty posted in the first post was quite illuminating: there are so many differences from the way they are danced now, but what struck me particularly was that Songbird (I hope I'm getting the names correct, because I never actually bother looking at which one's which in the programme!) was a lot faster, and probably not just because it was Lesley Collier performing it, and Golden Vine was virtually unrecognisable from what it's become now, the arms being almost completely different. The Bluebird variation posted was also equally enlightening: so much more movement and speed. What struck me particularly was the low (45°-ish) height of Florine's leg compared with what has now I think become an extended high developpé at maybe 135° or higher, which obviously takes a lot more care and time to execute. When did this happen?? Is it a wonder that things have slowed down so much?