alison

I think it was a difficult enough balance back in the Schaufuss days, certainly. And unless some money magically appears from somewhere, she won't have the breadth of roles that she did at the RB. I'm hugely disappointed that she'll be leaving the Royal, especially given next year's programming, but wish her the very best of luck in her new role.

From what I've read, it does. I seem to remember something about a £1/4 m donation to somewhere which could ill afford to lose it being under threat. And this from a government which allegedly wants to encourage private donations in support of the arts ...

Loved by the two 5-year-olds I know of who went to see it, certainly.

I was catching up with the Royal Ballet Live coverage on YouTube last night and (I think it was during the Sweet Violets rehearsal) someone asked what dancers did with their old pointe shoes. Leanne Cope mentioned that someone had used loads of them to make a sculpture or similar.

Or the piece somewhere in yesterday's Evening Standard property section which mentioned in passing that the Royal Ballet were going to be filming at someone's residence, or ...

*deemed* unsuitable, I hope you mean . Janet, as usual, makes some good points. Trouble is, people who break embargoes tend to put their future relationship with the press office in question at risk.

All credit to Diablo for getting out there and engaging with the public on the issue, albeit a bit late (and yes, Ian, I was hoping it had gone away!)

I'd dispute that: it's just that the people who tend to post seem to watch the RB rather more than they do ENB. And/or we don't know enough about the situation to add anything concrete, rather than just speculate . Anyway, dating back at least as far as Peter Schaufuss in 1990, the board has never discussed decisions of this sort publicly (and arguably it shouldn't, for legal reasons), and I doubt anything will change this time.

As indeed it was: we ended up with Johan Kobborg coaching Valentino Zucchetti and Dawid Trzensimiech (hope I've spelled that right - can't be bothered to get up and find my bag) in La Sylphide instead - and very nice it was, too! Thanks to all concerned.

Huh? I logged in about 20 minutes before you and didn't get in until about 12.45! Totally random - or do you include the waiting-room in the "buying tickets area"? I do know what you mean, although it depends on your computer, I think. On my laptop I can barely see the bought seats at all, which as you say is really disconcerting, but on my PC they are clearly there, but greyed out. I don't know what settings I need to change to make them more visible on the laptop, unless I've got the brightness up too high. Edit: no, changing the brightness makes no difference. Maybe it's the contrast.

Hello, SHarding, nice to see someone else who's delurked here, and thanks for your feedback. Mine from the first night was that I appreciate Polyphonia more and more every time I see it, especially now I've got more to grips with the Ligeti, which I've struggled with before; from the amphitheatre I struggled a bit with Sweet Violets, because it was difficult to follow what was going on (not that I think there's actually a linear narrative there) and the lighting for the two in succession gave me quite a headache, so it was quite a relief when it changed for Carbon Life (which I actually enjoyed very much, although I don't think it's one of McGregor's best). But who knows - I too may completely change my mind after seeing the programme again.

I've moved this thread to the News and Information forum: it makes sense to keep all the Period 1 stuff in one place.

I actually had a copy of the Radio Times for this week, and was noting the dance coverage (e.g. Pina Bausch) at the weekend and thinking perhaps I should post something about it, but then assumed that those who had Sky would know anyway, so my apologies. If you missed the "Jerome Robbins: a Celebration" this evening, you can catch it again (assuming you're still up, that is) from 4.05 to 6 am, preceded at 3.50 am by "Nuages", which I suspect is probably ballet. Oh, and it's on again tomorrow at 5 pm. "Pina" is repeated on Thursday 10 pm, with "Cafe Müller" at 11.50 (followed by "Nuages"). On Friday, Dutch National Ballet with "Giselle" at 11.05 pm. That's all I've spotted, and I don't think my usual cheapy TV mag covers Sky Arts 2, so I can't go beyond that, but if anyone else wants to contribute for future weeks, then please do!

So they are - I'd forgotten. Welcome back, harpistic.

Sounds from the ROH Facebook page as though it's very much a typical first-day-of-public-booking horror.

Just found this on the ROH Facebook page: http://www.roh.org.uk/news/monica-mason-to-receive-special-award-at-oliviers

I understand from what they're saying that it's the last "big" booking day on the old system, but not that the new one will be introduced tomorrow.

Trouble is, I can't tie my work phone up for hours trying to get through. If you can get through the Internet system in 90 minutes after going through the phone queue, and it takes me twice as long, doesn't it just mean the whole system is totally random? Me too, Gail. Nothing within my price range for either the Titian or Pagodas . BBB, presumably your idea of "reasonably good" Titian tickets means they're out of my price range?

I think I may be about to set some sort of world record here: I'm about to clock up 3 hours in the waiting-room and still not out of it yet. How's everyone else doing?

Well, some people clearly thought they knew as far back as the Coliseum season. I'm hoping they were wrong.

I wonder whether the absence of reviews of Eifman's Onegin thus far is just a reflection of publication priorities over a bank holiday weekend, or whether the critics all had other things to attend to?

I didn't really want to start another thread just for this, and this one seems to be the only Period 3 thread we have, but: Someone or other blogged or tweeted, a couple of months ago, that they were about to start shooting the "A World Stage" films for Period 3 (the one featuring Ed Watson doing what looks like a Western Roll over the high-jump bar - not going to win gold with one of those!), and asked for questions to put to him and so on. I've had a look on the ROH website, and the only bit of footage I've spotted so far is the bit to Florence and the Machine. Is there some more elsewhere? I thought there was more than that for the "Lauren Cuthbertson on the balance beam" version for Period 2, or am I confusing it with the footage from the previous year when she was on the front cover for "Alice" and we had all those wretched jumping-about-all-over-the-place films and things that were driving everyone nuts?

I'm hardly expert on the seats in the Stalls Circle, but I can't see any reason why you should have a problem there. They're in front of a load of standing places which I know a lot of people like, so presumably the seats ought to have a good view, too.

I agree with most of the above, including the glaring factual accuracies, which it seems to me are becoming more frequent. Ones I really can't forgive, though, are any professional critic not realising that it's the ballerina and not some member of the corps de ballet who does all the work in the second act of Coppelia (something I've come across at least twice over the last decade or so!) and other goofs on that scale. I am wondering whether the pressure to get reviews out fast contributes to the errors in any way. As for individual critics, I've realised over the years (although it does irritate me when a paper/site switches its critic once I've got used to them and their way of thinking) that there are some I will see eye-to-eye with and some I probably won't. The latter, I just tend to shrug and think "that's life" if I don't agree with them; for the former, I am more likely to question my own reaction if we differ wildly. Do I let reviews influence me? Yes, I suppose so, to some extent, depending on who the reviewer is, but probably not just one reviewer: if I read a whole lot of them saying a performance stinks, I may well not bother going to it, especially if I suspected it was going to stink anyway (but I am going to the Eifman Onegin tomorrow, anyway ). On the other hand, there is one reviewer (not a dance one) who I find tends to be more enthusiastic than I would be about things, and I automatically knock a star off his ratings so that I don't get my expectations up too high and then get disappointed. And some just write so well and/or entertainingly that I read them anyway

That's why I put "and assuming that you don't have the luxury of access to "big name" collaborators/performers to attract audiences" in my original post . After all, the RB does have something of an unfair advantage.