alison

It seems to me that Internet forums range - to put it in dance terms - between the extremes of Ballet Alert's ultra-structured approach and Dansomanie's "keep virtually everything together" one, both of which I find frustrating to some extent. "Ultra-structuring" would require more breadth than we have at present, and it's not psychologically good, or inviting, if nobody's posted in a sub-forum for months or even longer. I suppose we could add sub-forums later if it were felt necessary, but I agree that there's potential there for a bit of "ghettoisation". On the other hand, if there's little or no structuring, it's very difficult for the casual visitor to keep up with things without feeling inundated.

Thanks for the point about the alternative RB casting, John - I hadn't realised it was there, and will certainly use it next time the waiting-room's keeping me from accessing it on the ROH website. But how does it get updated? Presumably you're just as reliant on spotting (or someone else spotting) casting changes as the rest of us are, unless you have a hotline to the powers that be.

Paul N's comment about the calendar is good, but how does it work? I suspect it's not that easy. I don't know how the feature works, but unless it's capable somehow of grabbing details out of individual posts, it presumably has to access a database or something, which means that someone needs to feed it. I find it quite enough of a pain entering RB dates for the year in my Outlook calendar in order to get my head round the schedule without doing anything more, and it's worth noting that the early Ballet.co used to run a "What's on this week" page which was discontinued because it became too difficult to keep it up to date.

As for the News/What's Happening issue, I look at most news items as being alerts, relatively short-lived things, with possibly only a few posts to each, whereas many of the What's Happening threads are much more ongoing, and can end up with pages and pages of contributions. If the two forums were amalgamated, I think there would be a risk of news items getting displaced or inundated by the other ones, which I wouldn't want to see.

Incidentally, I note that Dansomanie seems to start a thread at the beginning of the season for each Paris Opera Ballet bill, and then everything pertaining to that bill gets put in there (I presume). I've sometimes wondered whether that would be a good way to do things for the Royal Ballet or not. OTOH, I think that threads of over 100 pages are probably a bit excessive

Edit: oh, and I think tags are potentially a good thing, but they might need to be a bit more consistent to be of real help. Certain forums I've seen have a list, or cloud, of frequently-occurring tags which you can use rather than make up your own each time, but again I don't know whether this software allows that.

Interesting to note that when both Polunin and (in the previous season) Acosta were unavailable/unable to dance Romeo the information was added to the bottom of the blurb about the ballet on the ROH website. That hasn't (yet) happened this time, I'm surprised to see.

the teasing, acrobatic Mercutio from late sub Alexander Campbell

Nooooo!! Don't tell me Cervera's injured, please (Much as I appreciated Campbell in the role a couple of months ago)

If forced to choose, I'd have preferred Bayadère for the rarity value, too, but of course it's only right that UK taxpayers should get a chance to see the companies they fund. Both would have been nice, though.

Ed's going to have a lot of busy weekends this month, obviously. Just as well they didn't replace Polunin with him as well, I guess (edit: actually, doubly so, otherwise he'd have had 2 performances within 12 hours!).

I don't think you'll get in for less than £15 (at least, not full-price) anywhere, Gail - although I thought Picturehouse did concessions. Thanks for posting: I'm hoping I won't have to go anything like that far, though. I'm currently playing "thread your way through the engineering works" with the TfL Journey Planner, and may actually be in a position to buy a ticket before I travel. Or maybe not: I might want to leave my options open, depending on where I can get to.

Oh. That was unexpected. I hope that wasn't too last-minute a cast change: that's not the sort of thing you want for your debut. Thanks for alerting us.

This depiction of a fictitious masterclass given to students by Maria Callas back in the 70s, I think, has been running in the West End for a few weeks now, to very good reviews. Given that I know there are a lot of opera fans as well as ballet fans on this site, I wondered if anyone had been to see it, and had any thoughts on it? It made a few very good points on what it is to truly be an artist, and the dedication to one's art which is required: I seem to remember thinking it might be appropriate for quite a few people.

Edit: I meant to say that I was reminded to post this by seeing a Travelzoo offer beneath the BRB one which Gail has just highlighted!

Thanks, Kevin. Very subtle annoyance, then, compared with many

Bumping this for the Bolshoi Le Corsaire next week: note the earlier-than-usual starting time.

For a lot of London-based audience members, at least, it looks as though it may be a case of threading your way through various sets of engineering works to get at the relevant cinemas for this! Time Out seems to suggest that it's virtually only the Picturehouse chain showing this one, and as far as I can see The Gate in Notting Hill and the Phoenix in Finchley are sold out. Wish Odeon were covering it: it'd make things a lot easier.

Is there a link to that, Angela?

In today's Telegraph, Serge Lifar's private collection of Ballets Russes material is about to be sold: http://www.telegraph...#?frame=2158787

Also, the Evening Standard on ENB's Tate Britain residency and Emerging Dancer competition: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/theatre/picasso-and-modern-british-art-enb-tate-britain--review-7541638.html?origin=internalSearch

That's great news for him. Sorry I shan't be able to see it.

Given that it clashes with the RB Romeo & Juliet, I'd guess not - I don't think France is getting UK broadcasts, either, so it cuts both ways. Pathé, unlike Opus Arte, seemingly can't be bothered to indicate whether there are any showings outside France and Switzerland: http://www.pathelive.com/fr/sp/spectacles/la-bayadere

500 or so in the waiting-room this morning. It really is daft to have their main system for selling current tickets effectively "out" for as many days as it has been in the last week.

I thought the company generally looked fresh and pleased to be back on stage, too. (And I too liked Stepanek's Paris). I also agreed with comments elsewhere that the fight between Tybalt and Romeo looked particularly fierce - but then it did the first time Kobborg ever danced the role, too.

You get to see them more than we do....and I'm about 600 miles to the south of SFB.

You mean you haven't seen them in 8 years?

That's a fascinatingly broad repertoire they have there ...

Even better. Knowing what they've been producing over the last few years, and also bearing in mind that it's at Sadler's Wells, so not so much pressure to fill thousands of seats, this has the potential to be really good.

YESSSSS!!!!

Indeed it has, Jane - must be getting on for a decade? Thanks for the notice.

Oh, really? Another one? Wonder whether their major sponsor's financial woes are going to have an effect on all these imports of dancers?

Thanks, Carol. Only £25 tickets left are standing.

With the last performance of the Royal Ballet's The Dream bill coming up, I wondered if anyone else has managed to see this rather anarchic version of Shakespeare's play? They've taken quite a few liberties with it, but I think it really works - and I had tears of laughter streaming down my face for much of it. It's pretty difficult to describe accurately, though - needs to be seen, I think. I think it's on for another week or two.

Edit: this is weird: the italics show up perfectly well when I go to edit this, but when I look at the website version I suddenly get the html showing through.

Oh, I've missed this forum! Thanks for reinstating it, John.

I've been struggling to find up-to-date details on this: I thought they'd usually be online by now? Needless to say, there appear to be a number of differences between what was originally announced and the latest line-up