alison

I've just had an email in from Ticketmaster - they appear to have a (very) small number of seats for both Acosta performances, although it should be noted that they are *not* at the prices shown in the ROH brochure. And I imagine there will be handling charges, booking charges and heaven knows what on top of that. Still not sure why on earth ROH needs to be selling tickets through anyone indirectly ...

Not as yet, no (although various people have already been quite vocal in their preferences here, I see ). Or, for that matter, who's replacing him in Polyphonia.

I doubt that it's a reconstruction in the real sense of the word, given the amount of time that must have been put into the one the Royal Ballet showed at the beginning of the century(!) (and which I, unlike certain of the critics, actually liked).

That's a very enlightening article about Infra in the Chicago Sun-Times - perhaps more so than the programme notes, I think, although I must admit that I wasn't as aware of all the references as that. But I suspect that the reference to McGregor's next work for the RB may not in fact be the forthcoming one, because it doesn't seem to tally with what's in the Period 3 booking brochure.

There's a brief comment on Ballet Talk, but I haven't seen anything else, Possibly the fact that it was in Washington has reduced the coverage. Or possibly someone will sum up the season later.

Yes, Bangorballetboy reported some time ago (possibly even on the old forum) that there were going to be 2 intervals and some more (dancing, I think) added.

Suite en Blanc's being done at the London Coliseum again, unless the programme's changed in the last few days. Edit: In fact, I see it has: there's no mention of the new Toer van Schayk piece, and I don't remember noticing this before: "Artistic Director Wayne Eagling reconstructs Nijinsky's Jeux with music by Debussy which sees a man and two girls flirting in a summer's garden, following a game of tennis. The performance also features the Acrobat from Nijinska's Le Train Bleu with music by Milhaud."

Yes, I meant to mention that earlier: he makes some useful points. I know there has been criticism of ABT bringing in so many guest stars recently - some people feel, at the expense of bringing on their own up-and-coming dancers - but I'd imagine that regular ABT-goers must be suffering something of a shell-shock at the moment. After all, ABT have for so long had a reputation for having so many good male dancers, and to lose - temporarily or permanently - a significant proportion of them in such a short space of time must really come as a shock to the system, especially when the realisation strikes home that really good male dancers don't just grow on trees. I just wish I could shake the feeling that rather too many ABT-watchers will end up spending the next few years bemoaning the absence of Jose/Ethan/Angel ... as Basilio/Siegfried/Romeo or whatever and not really seeing properly what their successors are making of the roles. Anyway, sorry, this was supposed to be a thread about the Royal Ballet, wasn't it? I suppose I can understand that there might be reasons why it might be felt better to get an experienced Oberon, and a big name, to replace Polunin rather than go for someone not experienced in the role from inside the company, but it's on quite a different level from the Royal Ballet loaning Alexander Campbell back to BRB to cover for a shortage of leads in Hobson's Choice ...

As it appears to be for quite a lot of people: I've been to three performances so far, and have been disappointed/disturbed to see people leaving partway through in each of them - not always at an appropriate break, either, or very discreetly. Anyway, that reminds me - vaguely - of something I've been meaning to ask about Song of the Earth for years: the costume colours. Sometimes I think it's just a trick of the light - and I confirmed last night that it is, partly - and at other times it definitely looks as though some dancers are wearing khaki while some are wearing grey. Has anyone ever worked this out?

Darn, I thought you were going to say casting was out (it is unusually late this time, isn't it?). I hate booking before I know who I'm booking for - I don't suppose he'll do the Thursday matinee ,,,

It's the Acosta effect, yet again . My rule of thumb is, if he's only doing 2 performances, book those first, because they'll go like hotcakes.

I've just got at it okay, so it seems to work.

That's always been my impression. I blame the Gheorghiu/Alagna Bohèmes this time around

And then they could have avoided throwing whatever presumably large amount of money at updating the website and doing something more useful with it. But I doubt they'll change.

I thought someone said it was Paul Kay last year, though I may have been wrong. I note that none of the people I was told were covers last year have been moved into the spare places. I wonder how long it'll be before we get to hear of the other cast replacements for period 3.

Has anyone noticed any correlation between whether or not they get the "select your own seat" option and the browser they use? I've made 4 attempts today, 2 on Internet Explorer where I got "select your own seat", and two on Firefox where I got the "you'll take what we give you or else". I think I've noticed this before, and wonder if it's coincidence or something else?

It's a highly inefficient method of getting tickets, Ian, it's true, but if you're after the cheap tickets you tend to find they've all gone if you don't book right at the beginning (assuming you can get some even then). For example on the "highly inefficient" front: session 2 - when I got in, the "select your own seat" facility wasn't available. Instead, you have to pick a price and let the site select a seat for you. Trouble is, with amphitheatre tickets it always assigns you the central, full-view tickets before the ones on the side, one go at a time. That means sitting right at the back of the amphi, whereas I'd prefer further down but on the sides for the same price. Upshot is that I pick a price band, it gives me a seat at the back, I reject it, select another band, reject that one and so on. Some 45 minutes wasted on getting what turned out to be one ticket. The only situation in which it works reasonably well is if there are a large number of seats all together in the same band, such as in the Grand Tier or Stalls, but for everywhere else I guess it's pretty counterproductive if people keep wasting time selecting and rejecting, and not making way for those waiting. Oh, and the site clearly decided that I hadn't suffered enough today, because when I had 18 minutes left to make payment it decided to play a game of "There's a hole in your shopping basket dear Liza", and dumped both the standing ticket I'd managed to get *and* the return for Thursday's Dream which I thought I'd hold onto while I checked whether anyone wanted one. Compare with: Session 3: I get straight into "Select your own seat", pick my dates, have a quick click on the 3 tiers I'm interested in, grab tickets which are reasonably suitable, or decide not to buy if not, log in, pay and am out of there with another 4 tickets in about 10 minutes. I think it's clear which is the more efficient ...

And now I'm back in, the site is in "pot luck" mode, which means that on average I need to try 3 separate price bands, and my chances of finding anything I can actually use are virtually zero

Looks as though that last post didn't stick. Never mind, Paul, at least things are speeding up. I'm at 137 in the queue (after 2 1/2 hours) and my "tail" session, which was about 1000 places behind the "head" session, is now only about 750 behind.

Well, I'll believe it when it's been proven in action. Preferably in a booking period with, say, Domingo, Alagna, Gheorgiu, Terfel, Netrebko, Florez et al for good measure

Well, of all the lousy public booking experiences I've had, this one has been the most abysmal by a long way. Not only is the transfer from page to page incredibly slow (except, fortunately, when it came to payment), but I kept ending up with blank pages, and not being able either to refresh or to backspace out of them. The site has added a second ticket from somewhere where I never had the cursor; it managed to lose a ticket I actually had to a Clore rehearsal; the section selection diagram has frozen several times. I carefully made sure I logged in when I realised how many problems there were, in case I needed to email the box office and it would make it easier for them if they could identify my booking. The site appeared to have logged me out again at one point, although thankfully I don't think it did: at one point when I had most of the tickets it suddenly dumped me back in the waiting-room - PANIC! - but somehow I managed to persuade it to let me back in again. I managed to pick up about 1/4 of the tickets I wanted, and then decided, given how badly the site was behaving, to get out while the going was good. Clicked on the Shopping Basket link - blank page! Several times. Finally got to it, attempted to remove added ticket: blank page! Decided not to risk it again, but to pay for unwanted ticket. Had a couple of hiccoughs in the early payment stages, but in the end payment was the only thing that went smoothly. Am still over 1000 in the queue on my Firefox session started well over an hour ago. Internet Explorer is still saying it can't even display the webpage. On my PC, I'm getting the "too busy" page again. (Do watch out for the "Welcome - Royal Opera House" tab - it probably means you've actually got the "too busy" page, rather than you've actually made it in somehow). Anyone remember the "good old days" when you could get through this thing in a couple of hours? I used to log on at noon sharp (i.e. as soon as I was allowed to use the Internet for personal use) and carry on working until I got out of the waiting-room. I was inevitably finished before 2 pm when I had to be back on work-use only. How on earth do they expect people with jobs (and non-understanding employers) to sit around on a computer for 4 hours just waiting to book? Ridiculous.

No. You're hallucinating I've been in the queue for over 2 hours now, and have just dropped below 100. As for the sessions I attempted to start just before 10 am (one on Firefox, one on IE), FF let me into the waiting room about 11.30. IE is still giving me the "too busy" schtick - when it isn't doing the "unable to find page" bit, or something else. Totally random. At one stage, I managed to get on to the home page, and found that "WHAT'S ON" link was actually missing. Edit: even now I'm finally in, the site is unusually sluggish. It's taking forever to get from page to page, which isn't normal in these circumstances.

Oops, sorry. Can anyone "mod out" my duplicate replies, please? It's too late for me to edit them (changing the editing time to more than 30 minutes would be very helpful, I think).

Well, that's a major haul today. Thanks very much, John.

It did. Thanks very much, Laura!