alison

While catching up with some old Dance Links, I came across this reference by Judith Mackrell (in relation to World Ballet Day): "A parallel project – live rather than screened – is the open week to be held by Rambert at its new base on the South Bank. Between 13-18 October, the public will be allowed in to watch daily class and rehearsal, offering the kind of intimate, exhilarating proximity to the dancers that was created during the wonderfully staged Rambert event earlier this summer." The article is at http://www.theguardian.com/stage/dance-blog/2014/sep/19/world-ballet-day-live-tv-danceathon

Thank you, aileen. I had no idea that site existed. It looks good.

I gather there's some sort of Tube strike scheduled between the Tuesday and the Thursday. You mean there are others? I can manage without tubes for most places I go to regularly in London, but unfortunately Sadler's Wells really isn't one of them: buses to anywhere usable for me take forever, and make it difficult to know when I can get up there, too.

Me too. Actually, when I was doing A Midsummer Night's Dream for O-Level English Lit we went to a production locally where the actors were wearing what could very loosely be described as "Elizabethan" dress, tights and all - not that dissimilar to the Poet in Les Sylphides without the jerkin, I'd think. My schoolfriends were all giggling and whispering about The Bulge, whereas I was just managing to ignore it entirely. And I wasn't even into ballet back then! I don't think I knew that. Interesting. I guess you weren't watching athletics maybe 15 years ago, Ribbons! Forget Linford Christie - Frankie Fredericks of Namibia was the worst: his country's kit, I think, was predominantly white, and he didn't appear to be wearing any support underneath. Not pretty ...

Unsurprised to hear this news. So, Elena gets only the one performance, at a time which may be difficult or impossible for many people to make. Slightly different from Klimentova's farewell back in the summer, eh? And no performances anywhere near London where one might be able to catch one last glimpse of her Edit: No, you're not imagining it - this post was originally at the top of this thread, and I moved it because it didn't make sense to have it ahead of Janet's post. She is the author of this thread, though, not me.

It seems unusual to me, now you ask. I'd assumed that ENB directors tended to have an unspecified term, to be terminated by the Board as they see fit. But perhaps this does in fact happen in reality and we've just never been aware of it before.

Duh! And then I went and booked Khan and Guillem for one night of it! :facepalm: Anyway, I thought I'd bump this: there are tickets left at present for the London dates, but there are only two of them, and there were a lot of disappointed people who missed out last year!

You may find some more enlightenment about the season's programming in today's interview with Rojo in the Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/11137955/Tamara-Rojo-Just-a-beautiful-body-That-bores-me-to-death.html

[Edited to remove my original post, which is posted further down this thread. Janet posted here at the same time I was posting my response on the original ENB press-release post: I then moved my post over to here only to find that I must have posted seconds before she did, and the board software inserted my reply in front of her original post. I trust that's all as clear as mud]

Yes, it's a shame they don't do it that often any more.

"Showing off"? As Des Grieux? That wouldn't seem like very good characterisation ...

Ah, good. I thought I was having a comprehension failure

I tried posting this last night, but for some reason it didn't "take". Unfortunately, there's now little more than 24 hours from time of posting for you to get tickets. 42% off second-price tickets at Sadler's Wells: http://uk-offers.timeout.com/deals/entertainment-birmingham-royal-ballet?cid=ofgp_london

It says here that extra dates have been added to the Time Out offer: however, I don't know when that was written: http://uk-offers.timeout.com/deals/entertainment-manon-at-the-royal-opera-house

It says here that extra dates have been added to the Time Out offer: however, I don't know when that was written: http://uk-offers.timeout.com/deals/entertainment-manon-at-the-royal-opera-house

That's okay, I don't have a problem with that at all. It's just that to buy x bananas and then just tear one off for the sake of it seems totally wrong to me. Incidentally, a Sainsbury's Local opened near the office recently. I've been trying to avoid buying things in it since it's not exactly cheap, and there's a big branch not that much further away. The receptionist went in there, bought her usual supply of bananas, and was shocked to find that instead of paying about 60-70 p she was charged £1.20. She hadn't registered the label which said they were sold individually, not by weight.

The burning question of the entire production , of course, is: have the Gaoler's breeches changed? They look rather looser than they used to, I think, when they were more like thick ballet tights. It's been bugging me since the first night.

Thank you

And can anyone tell me who the "Manon" dancers are in the NBC bit? Katherine, perhaps, unless it was announced at the beginning and others picked it up?

Finally getting a chance to look at the NBC footage, and although I can hear the piano perfectly well, I'm struggling to make out what Dowell is saying. Is it the equipment here, or has anyone else had the problem? Also, the audio on the SFB sounds as though it's underwater

Which I am delighted to hear. I don't know why they've been dropped, but I suppose someone must have discovered that they do something nasty to the knees, or something.

I'm not sure whether I was just getting Manon-ed out after 4 shows in under a week, which is quite possible, but last night's performance didn't really grab me. Maybe it was because I was one of the fortunate few who'd seen Morera's one show with Bonelli last time around, but it really didn't have the same impact for me this time. Now that World Ballet Day is out of the way, I also ought to say a few words about the Hayward/Watson cast on the Tuesday matinee. I wasn't sure quite how much I should expect from Hayward on her debut - after all, the lead in a 3-act ballet is a major step up from Rhapsody - but my goodness she certainly delivered, in a very capricious Manon - no wonder her Des Grieux was confused by her frequent changes of mood. The first scene was, I wouldn't say tentative, but perhaps not yet full-throttle, but by the time they got to the bedroom scene they were very much in sync, and it showed, in what I think must have been one of the most delightful bedroom pas de deux I've seen. It was certainly greeted by tremendous applause. Des Grieux can be a pretty bland role (I remember once, in the middle of the last decade, wondering whether even Ed Watson would be able to make anything interesting of it. More fool me ), but Watson managed to break my heart, first with his anguished solo at Madame's, where he again managed to extract more emotion from the steps than I would have believed possible, and later on in the second bedroom scene. I was, however, less convinced by his portrayal of Des Grieux as a young man who is relatively at home in the demi-monde: surely a major part of his character (and indeed it is his name which features first in the full title of the novel) is the unsullied, upstanding young man from a good family (he *is* a Chevalier, after all) who is corrupted by his love for Manon, finally cheating and committing murder for her. If he's already comfortable in that world, surely that undermines his character's journey through the ballet? I think I'm also in agreement with annamk's comments about Alexander Campbell's Lescaut: although I had a restricted-view seat for Act II, realised I would miss a fair amount of his dancing and decided to concentrate on the other characters instead, I had thought at his debut at the weekend that he was over-egging the "drunk" scene.

As do several of the other critics

I'm not sure what's happening, except that I noticed that the ROH took the Deloitte Ignite live relay off YouTube before I'd had a chance to watch *that*, if that's any indication. I saw some reference to "edited" versions: whether that means it's cut down, or just cut up into more palatable-sized chunks, I don't know.

That Site is still there: I've just gone and looked - I was thinking about it only the other day, actually, since it was the beginning of October. If I'm feeling particularly masochistic one day, I might try and battle to get logged back in there, but certainly not at the moment, when it's taking me about 5 minutes to download any page! Your second bit reminds me of a book I once read, about a girl who was at some sort of ballet boarding school (but definitely not White Lodge). I know I bought it at a school fair one year, and I'd guess it dated from the 50s. I can't remember much about it now, except that one of the heroines(ish), due to injury or something, ended up being given Prayer in the final act of Coppelia. Amazing what you can recall at times, isn't it? (Wish I could actually recall what I was supposed to be doing on the Internet tonight apart from posting on here, of course!)