alison

My local Co-op was once unable to sell me a (perfectly acceptable) bunch of flowers because it was past its sell-by date. The system actually wouldn't process it, so I guess those barcodes must have sell-by dates programmed in as well.

Well, you have very little choice for the Friday apart from rear side orchestra stalls (which might not be at all bad). I guess it's going to depend on your budget, really: there are seats at a variety of prices for the Wednesday. You do need to be aware that if you sit in the central sections of the tiers you are a fair way from the action, and of course the further you move round the sides to get closer to the stage the more of a viewing restriction you have. Also, the sound underneath the tiers may be a little muted compared with what you'd get in the orchestra stalls or front amphitheatre. Personally, I think I'd go for one of the following: side(ish) stalls circle (somewhere on the curve, maybe), central balcony (the back row is cheaper, and not bad, although the seats are rather on the high side, and come with a footrest which would force you to sit with your knees at quite a sharp angle if you wanted to use it - there should be a picture of the seat type along with your view when you book online), or front amphi. I do like a bit of height relative to the stage, so that you can see over the heads of the dancers at the front, but apart from the Snowflakes I can't think of much in this Nutcracker production which really needs to be seen from on high. As for the risk of sitting in an empty auditorium - forget it! The ROH are very canny with their scheduling of Nutcracker, and always manage to arrange it so that the theatre is at least 99% sold. It's just that some performances will take longer to sell than others. Nunez and Muntagirov are very big draws, and a Friday night is always popular, too, because the children don't have to be up early for school the next day.

Oh, yes, check the view from the seats offered on the website when you book, and bear in mind that the stage is rectangular and deep, so you need to mentally plot where it is over the photo - you may have a complete view of the proscenium arch, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to see all of the stage behind it. Is there anything left in the balcony? That would get you a bit nearer to the action.

Good morning, Gianlu, and welcome to the forum. I must admit, there are a lot of posters on here who go to the Nutcracker a lot more than I do, and who will be better placed to advise you, cast-wise. I'm not sure I've seen any of the Wednesday cast, although I'm sure Emma Maguire would make a fine Clara. Based on cast alone, my inclination would certainly be to go for the Friday one, most of whom I have seen, but then when you think of it the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier are probably only on stage for about 15 minutes in total anyway, so it really is a company ballet, and I'm sure there'll be plenty to enjoy regardless of who's dancing. As for sightlines, yes, front stalls still aren't briliiant for viewing from, in my opinion: I think the consensus on here in the past has been that you should ideally sit row H or back. It will depend on your height, as well, because if you're not particularly tall you might have problems seeing over the people in front of you. Front amphi is good sightwise and sound-wise, although I've sat in the side blocks of row B and found them short on legroom. OTOH, it is rather far up (and you have to descend 7 rows from the entrance), so generally not suitable for people with vertigo. I'm sure plenty of other people will be chipping in with suggestions - in fact, someone has while I've been writing this. Good luck!

Agree with the first and third, and to an extent with the second - Titania is certainly strong-willed, but OTOH Oberon still has the upper hand. She's the one who capitulates. Actually, staying with Shakespeare, I'd say Hermione and Paulina in The Winter's Tale, as well. It must take a lot to face down your husband, the king, when he accuses you of adultery.

Not sure about that. It screams "the audience needs to be able to see this" to me . Never mind, we can agree to differ. Does Alice (Wheeldon's, at least) count, or is she too young?

Ah, but does she? She's really rather reactive rather than proactive. After all, the reason she doesn't end up marrying Alain is because her honour is compromised. It's not as if she deliberately set up the reveal of her and Colas in her bedroom.

Oh, sorry, I may have posted in the wrong ENB casting thread? I think this was referring to the current tour of Romeo & Juliet, perhaps? Hopefully he'll be recovered in time to do at least some of his currently scheduled Corsaire performances. I've just realised that ENB is doing a couple of rather male-heavy productions at the moment, at least where higher-ranked roles are concerned.

No, we had Don Q and Alice instead.

Ah, I see. In that case, we have definitely gone a bit off-course - not that that's anything unusual, of course I thought your above-referenced post certainly implied that it was by order of the management, and that everyone did it, not just her. I'm not sure anyone was implying that, in any shape or form. It would indeed be doing her a disservice. I seem to remember ENB, back in Derek Deane's day, I think it was, unless it was Wayne Eagling's, specifically asking the women not to get too tanned/burnt on holiday. I think it's not only difficult to mask, but I got the feeling that sunburn showed up very oddly through the white foundation. Incidentally, I did remember noticing recently that one company didn't appear to be using the white foundation at all for its swans. Certainly Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake doesn't appear to have done so for a while now, although that may well be for reasons of practicality as much as anything else.

Do you think that's partly down to the fact that they almost invariably need a man to partner them?

I saw his Albrecht debut. It will be interesting to see how much he's developed in the role since then - and in a different production.

It is, isn't it? Think maybe I'll stick with trying to find a colour (and font size) which is easy to pick out from the rest of the posts.

I'm not sure. Obviously Hayward is higher up the rankings and has done more and bigger roles than Naghdi, so is more "visible". I'm trying to remember what it was like when Jerry Douglas joined the company, back in 1997, I think it was. I remember the fact that he was black (and I think was actually the first black member of the company? in which case he must have preceded Carlos Acosta) was mentioned in a couple of press articles, but my impression was that the company was trying not to make too much of it. OTOH, things have changed since then, social media has flared up, and of course we have the "Misty Copeland" effect. *And* Hayward is female. Couple this with the articles recently promoting Eric Underwood, several of which, I seem to remember, mentioned that he was black, and various mentions about the ethnicity of several of BRB's leads in Swan Lake, and I tend to extrapolate that either questions have been asked about why British companies "don't have" black dancers like ABT does, or that the companies feel the necessity to emphasise the fact that they *do*.

There is, thankfully, very little gossip on this site, so I doubt it would make much difference to the length of threads

It may be that the extra time is needed under the circumstances.

But there's the first "night" filming as well. Unless that's not connected.

Eek. Thanks, Yaffa. I've been too busy to watch ... Has anyone seen which appear to be the permanent features on YouTube?

Aha! I was surprised there wasn't any sort of "highlighter" command. Thanks, John.

Sorry to see Saruhashi is out

I still don't understand what's happening with the Rhapsody/Two Pigeons filming. If I'm to believe what it says in the winter season brochure, they seem to be filming different casts (the first "night" one, followed by I think it was the Cuthbertson Two Pigeons?). Either that, or the filmed performances have been marked incorrectly.

I think that having seen Naghdi/Ball a couple of weeks ago perhaps took some of the shine off this (non-) debut for me. I didn't get the feeling of any comparable chemistry between the two of them - not surprising, perhaps! - and thought that perhaps some of the supporting cast needed more time to get into their roles as well. I was sitting in exactly the same seat for both performances, and I seem to remember I put away my opera glasses for Naghdi, so clear was she being, but needed them for Hayward (and *I* didn't have high-powered binoculars, so didn't pick up on all the detail). Francesca's dancing was beautiful - of course - and incredibly light, but there were a few moments where for me that was all it was, beautiful, and I was expecting it to reveal something about Juliet's feelings as well. Golding, I agree, came into his own in Act III, although I thought when he started the ballet he was a bit too much "Ballet Prince" for Romeo. All in all, for me a highly commendable debut(ish), but not on a par with the previous one, and I think it would be unreasonable for me to have expected otherwise. Incidentally, what Romeo & Juliet version do Dutch National Ballet have in their rep?

Generally, I think we're pretty tolerant about people saying what they think, even if it doesn't necessarily please everyone. It's the "Innuendo, rumour, gossip" side of things that can be a problem.

I've justy highlighted and enlarged capybara's cast-change post No. 58 above in the hopes of making it easier to spot for someone quickly scrolling down the page. I originally did it in red, but then realised that may not be helpful for anyone who is red-green colourblind! Any feedback? Does it work? Is it reasonably easy to spot and read? Please post any comments in this thread http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/10891-highlighting-text-in-posts/, rather than clutter up the existing thread.

I've just done an experiment to highlight a message about a cast change in a page of posts, here: http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/10523-enb-casting-for-romeo-and-juliet/?p=146122 in the hope that it would stand out to someone quickly scrolling down the page. It's currently in orange text and font size 18. I would have tried it in red, but wasn't sure how it would show up to anyone with red-green colourblindness. If you have any feedback, please post it here. I can't see that we have any viable options apart from changing font colour and size, and many of the font colours aren't both easily visible and sufficiently well distinguished from black.