alison

Shades of previous non-London trips by the company? And probably rather better prepared than some of his other concerts have appeared to be, I'd guess?

And even Golding, I suspect, hasn't had the ballets which are his forte to show us what he can really do.

I must admit, I always fancied having the pas de deux from Ashton's The Dream done as a sort of divertissement at mine. That music

Isn't that the case with the Skeaping production for ENB, too? I guess we shall get a reminder in the new year.

The impression we got was that it became a coproduction *after* they'd seen it, wasn't it? It was the apparent lateness of the announcement that raised eyebrows.

Seems to me he's already doing those quite happily(?) from where he is

And I seem to remember some years ago complaining about the Mayflower, Southampton selling either popcorn or very rustly sweets I don't mind them selling the things (well, I *do* popcorn, because it's nauseating), but for heaven's sake either sell them in something that doesn't rustle, or give the people buying them something to decant them into. I remember the New Victoria Theatre in Woking used to do pick + mix, which was much better, because there probably weren't any wrappers to unwrap.

I'm sorry to hear this, but not surprised. It was a real step up for him, and I trust he's benefitted from the experience overall.

Thank you all for this. A year or two back, I discovered, perhaps 6 months after the event, that the mother of one of my childhood friends, who used to be one of our neighbours, had died in some rather distressing circumstances. I wanted to send her husband a card with my memories of her - she was always such a sweetheart - but my family persuaded me that it was too late and that I would only be opening up the wounds again. I'll have another think about it.

I think the cast change was Kevin Emerton replacing someone - Erico Montes? - as the Steward.

Okay, now I'm confused. Based on my one viewing of it, I first thought Medea killed Jason and the Princess, which seemed odd to me - but the girl's silhouette looked very much like that of the princess. Shortly after, I realised that both "victims" had been on their knees, and therefore assumed that they were actually representing her children, especially once the curtains had collapsed and she gathered them up so tenderly. Any other thoughts? Wikipedia page on Kahlo is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo, BTW. I thought Broken Wings was very effective - could certainly see a correlation between this and Ochoa Lopez' A Streetcar Named Desire for Scottish Ballet, which I really enjoyed. If you separate the choreographic content from the overall production, though, I could understand that people might think somewhat differently. I suspect Fantastic Beings may have worked better seen from above than from lower down in the auditorium: I can imagine that the bottle green costumes may not have shown up too well against such a dark background. The usual what I always call "Sadler's Wells lighting" - looks stunning until you actually try to see dancers' faces and realise you can't: although, having said that, it wasn't nearly as bad as most incidents of SW lighting I've seen in the past, and I probably could have identified dancers if I'd really tried. A rather belated reminder that not everyone who reads these pages is on first-name terms with the dancers of any company: it would be nice to see people's surnames referenced now and again so that it was easier to work out who was being talked about

Oops ...

I think so, especially at Covent Garden. I remember Mara Galeazzi saying something to the effect that she might not have minded doing Odette/Odile early in her career, but that it was a young dancer's ballet. Really? I'm surprised at that. Do you just keep dancers on at soloist level indefinitely even when they're hardly being cast in dancing roles (possibly clogging up the ranks for other dancers?), or do you let them retire and lose all that stage experience? Incidentally, it's not guaranteed that a PCA *won't* do any more dancing - hasn't that been Gary Avis' rank since he rejoined the company? To be honest, I have over the years seen several candidates I thought might move into such positions, and wondered why the PCAs seemed to have skipped a generation, and there are several worthy candidates or future candidates in the company at the moment.

Me too, so I hope you're right and that whatever it was has passed. And I too thought it was extremely discourteous to the dancers at the cinema relay to cut away from their curtain calls. (Oh, and bridiem, the cinema was virtually full for the live relay - I'd guess that the unusual repeat pattern may have confused some people).

As long as the ushers spot it getting in there, which they clearly didn't with the sandwich-eater I mentioned the other week.

I think it did. I remember I felt a bit mean mentally "only" giving it 4 stars myself

-ish. To my mind, those palms are tilted a bit too much upwards, at least where it's frozen on my screen But then I'm not one of the people best qualified to judge. Welcome to the forum, Dormouse.

Bit late, I know, but it looks as though some Southeastern trains will be stopping short of London, at New Cross. Combine that with an extremely early start at the ROH, and ... The whole Circle Line is out, too, although I think most of the District Line is running. Didn't *notice* any work affecting the Northern Line, for those going to Sadler's Wells.

Thanks, Janet. Maybe I'll bear that in mind and go for the Second Circle if I go.

Hear, hear.

Some returns currently available online.

Shades of Illuminations?

So, part of the reason, we have been told, why we need much more work by women choreographers is to provide an alternative to the male-centric world view of ballet/dance which has resulted from predominantly having male choreographers ruling the roost over the last few centuries. Does this programme do this - show signs of a female sensibility - beyond the decision to concentrate on female central characters? Is there something distinctive that we don't find in the work of male choreographers, and if not, why not? Might it be that people choreograph similarly regardless of gender, or are women choreographers still labouring under the yoke of male oppression, so to speak, and haven't yet thrown it off completely? I'd be interested in feedback.

Thanks for bumping this thread, Ruth - I didn't have time to look for it on Tuesday. My booking experience went smoothly, for once (not that I had much to do!), although the only Stalls Circle/Balcony standing space I saw was for the RBS matinee. Unfortunately, I was unlucky getting seats for the first-cast performances of the triple bill, i.e. first and last nights, so if anyone has any spares they don't want do think of me

(Is it sad that I've managed to catalogue all of Watson's Mayerling performances in this way? )