DrewCo

All the additional details about seats are very helpful...thanks to everyone. I fear I sound unadventurous, but you have understood me exactly.

Thank you all very much... Regarding Alison's warning about getting tickets for multiple performances of a new production that is, after all, an unknown quantity. I admit I am perhaps irrationally optimistic about this Swan Lake. Via video I liked the Macfarlane designs for Frankenstein--and Scarlett reviving bits of Ashton choreography? Hurrah! I must admit I have pretty "conservative" tastes in Swan Lake. The Royal, I think, has been spared the absurdities of many 20th-21st-century productions--no Odette and Siegfried living happily ever after, no dancing Rothbarts, no gang rapes. (I've only read about the last mentioned, not seen it--Thank God!) I'm hoping Scarlett doesn't break the streak... This also an opportunity for me to catch up with the Royal Ballet's dancers in a 19th-century ballet. In 2015 I traveled to see them in New York but for that NY visit the rep was all 20th-21st-century choreography. I think my main worry, in addition to picking the right seats, is just how high the prices may go. And I will certainly look out for other dance in London during that week!

The Mariinsky may be going through some problematic times, but Paquita is still right in their wheelhouse (much more so than Infra which I should think you could see danced much better at the Royal Ballet no?). Unless you actually don't much care for "pure" displays of nineteenth-century classical dancing, I would try to find a way to stay for Paquita if you can... I can't bring myself to comment on the Alonso Carmen, but I know tastes vary greatly.

I'm writing with a question...well, actually, several. My guess is that these questions have been asked and answered before. I did some searches, but a "Royal Opera House" + "tickets" and variants thereof turn up a zillion different threads, so I gave up. I have attended the Royal Opera House occasionally--usually when work has taken me to the UK--but not often and not recently. And I've almost never been able to plan carefully ahead of time. But this year may be different. Work will take Mr. Drewco to London in June--I'm coming with him and we plan to make a holiday of it when his work is out of the way. We hope to attend several performances of Swan Lake and, as we don't see a lot of world class ballet, we are willing to splurge on good seats if we can get them. I see on the Royal Opera House website that tickets go on sale for the general public in early April, but I have a few questions about the process: 1)When are casts likely to be announced? work dictates this trip but we have a little flexibility and casts could make a difference to our arrival/departure dates. 2)Any risk "friends" buy up much of the house before the tickets go on sale to the general public? 3)Are seats banked in all sections of the theater. I have a vague memory that Stalls circles are hardly banked at all--that row B or C for someone short, like myself, might be a disaster. (We are going to splurge if we can--but if we splurge we want to be able to see the stage). 4)Any advice about Grand Tier and Balcony seats? or sight-lines generally? Years ago I got some excellent advice on ROH stalls circles seats on an American message board and of course I remember the seats I actually sat in...But any thoughts from people here would be welcome--especially advice for short people. (My body has long since informed me that my standing room days are over.) Thanks for your patience with these questions...

I am guesing Simon Morrison is the American professor. This is in line with remarks he made that were quoted in a New York Times article: "It looked hesitant, it was shaky, it was not there." However, the article also said that Morrison had seen some "fragments" of the ballet on video. I was quite surprised he would weigh in on such a serious and controversial matter on the basis of video fragments, and even if the fragments he saw were considerably more substantial than what has been floating around the internet. The rest of his remarks seemed to me not untrue--he underlined the particular importance for a controversial work not to flop--but in the context of a cancellation under murky circumstances and a ballet he has never seen...it just seemed surprising that he would voice an opinion on the choreography/staging. Edited to say: Morrison is the author of Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian Ballet from the Rule of the Tsars to Today.

The Avedon Nureyev photos were a sensation at the time. And Nureyev's sex appeal Is inextricable from his persona; his pushing of boundaries and disdain for norms are even more inextricable. A tame ballet about such an untameable figure hardly seems worth the trouble. Actually I have doubted this Serebrennkov/Possokhov ballet would altogether appeal to me--partly because the bio-ballet does not appeal to me as a genre, but partly because I'm so doubtful about anyone 'playing' Nureyev (or Fonteyn or Bruhn--but Nureyev especially). Reading about these images, I'm wondering if photos of Nureyev integrated creatively--and not piously--into the production might help to remind audiences of the gap between stage image and historical person, and I kind of like the sound of that idea...As to whether it works in the theater or whether other ways of recalling Nureyev would have done as well or better, whether it's disastrous -- there is no way to say without seeing the ballet.

Serebrennikov (director/libretist working with Possokhov as on Hero of Our Time) was recently questioned regarding misuse of funds at his Gogol Center Theater, though he was supposedly not himself under investigation at that time. Urin spoke publically on his behalf too. People in the arts world (those on social media at any rate) think he and his theater are being harassed because the government does not like what they are doing. I have NO idea if this has anything to do with the Bolshoi production's postponement.

Sense of dignity?

I I would say Kondaurova has a much more obviouslly striking presence. She is even rather majestic. If the word didn't have a bad connotation, then I would say she is more of a 'diva' type. Her striking appearance (tall, red hair, gorgeous) adds to the effect. She has substantial gifts as an actress too. Osmolkina when I have seen her--and supplementing from video--seems more of a pure classicist, more of what I think of as a 'Kirov' style dancer (a style I like very much). Kondaurova skeptics sometimes say they prefer her in contemporary works; I'll venture a guess that no one has ever said that of Osmolkina. One caveat: I love the Mariinsky, but I don't have the deep and extensive experience with them that others, including others on this site, do. But these are my impressions. I'm looking forward to reading yours!

I now have a brand new one, which is the arrival of Princess Praline in Ratmansky's Whipped Cream--riding on a 'snow Yak' and followed by a parade of magical sweets come to life along with a 'pink Yak' and other creatures as they rescue the sick boy-hero from the hospital or, if you prefer, as they appear, in his delirium, to rescue him. Whipped Cream is a ballet in which every scene (every moment) is a visual delight, but the arrival of Princess Praline -- preceded by ornamental stars suddenly sparkling above the boy's hospital bed and four little dancing cupcakes, so you know something special is about to happen -- well, I found that the most magical. (Sets and costumes by the artist Mark Ryden, his first designs for ballet.) Striking visuals not reliant on sets and costumes? Bridiem already mentioned "the endings of so many Balanchine works." I'll mention two in particular. The final tableau of Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements when the cast forms an image of geometric intricacy, arms as well as legs making strict vertical and horizontal lines but with the ballet's featured men crouched at the front as if ready to spring out at the audience. It's at once formal and threatening. And the final moments of Four Temperaments with repeated arching lifts that appear like springing fountains amid horizontal rows of dancers who themselves seem to summon up and then contain all the physical and emotional energies let loose by the entire ballet. Here, too, the image fuses geometric intricacy and uncontainable life. And yet the tone is entirely different...

Skorik has been out for a while now with an injury. Even if she is back by later this summer she might not be 100% . I have enjoyed her performances more than many fans I read online, but I would recommend Kondaurova too. Moreover, Kondaurova is very different from Osmolkina--it might make for an interesting contrast. Regarding ballerinas generally in Swan Lake (that is, those I have actually seen in the theater): Lopatkina is my ideal especially as Odette; seeing her in Swan Lake was one of the most inspiring events of my life. But way back when, I also adored Semenyaka--a very exciting Odile--and Makarova. I realize there is a pattern here...I guess, thinking it over, my favorite non-Vaganova trained, non-Russian Swan was probably Guillem. As it happens, I had a near miss with Fonteyn when my mother took all my siblings to the Hollywood Bowl to see her (and Nureyev) in Swan Lake, but sent my pre-school aged self off to go bowling or some such with my father. You will say I couldn't possibly have appreciated or, later, remembered a performance I saw that young anyway. Perhaps not, but a year later I was taken to my first ballet and was completely swept away!

Perhaps of interest to people curious about "performances in the U.S.A.:" A livestream of a June 11th performance by the Pacific Northwest Ballet will be available for viewing online for a few more weeks. As many here probably know, it's a very highly regarded company. The company live-streamed their final performance of the season -- a mix of excerpts and full ballets -- which paid tribute to two long-time principals who are now retiring: Carrie Imler and Batkhurel Bold. The evening also included a video looking back at their careers. According to what the company posted at the end of the performance, the live-stream will be be available to be watched through July 11th. It may sound like a specialty event likeliest to appeal to long-time fans of the company, but I had never seen the company before and I found it an enjoyable (and moving) evening with some wonderful dancing by the whole company. The program featured choreography by a number of choreographers including Balanchine, Wheeldon, Millepied, and Kent Stowell. (The latter co-directed the company with Francia Russell for many years). You can find the performance on the Pacific Northwest Ballet Facebook page. I think this link will take you directly to it--it is a bit slow to load though:

Krysanova is another Bolshoi ballerina who has danced Swan Lake in recent years. I can't say I thought her a great Odette-Odile when I saw her dance the role in 2014--I didn't--but there were things to enjoy and admire in that performance including brilliant dancing in the coda of the first Lake scene and also in portions of the 'black swan' pas de deux, including warp speed, if otherwise kind of careless, fouettes. She also brought a kind of sensual quality to Odette as well as Odile, which I found a bit interesting. She may have developed in the role since then. (I had thought she danced it more recently in London.) I'm mentioning this not to second guess Vaziev's decisions for the Japan tour, but to include her among recent Bolshoi swans being mentioned. I also do not care for the Grigorovich Swan Lake...at all.

Inglesby was, as I understand, 14-15 at the time. Assuming her memories are accurate, still she herself may not have fully grasped what was going on if Markova just did not want her there while the ballet was being created -- or for some other reason for that matter. Or she may have understood exactly what was happening. I doubt one can sort it out fairly now. (And perhaps one value of time is that one can revisit the past without necessarily having to re-fight its battles. Well...sometimes.) I am an American fan, and Inglesby was only known to me as the barest name before I read this thread. It's a pleasure finding out more about her. Thank you Assoluta for starting the discussion.

Just saw Whipped Cream for the first time and am eager to see how it strikes me after seeing it again, but based on one viewing I can say at least that how one responds to the ballet's genre probably has a lot to do with whether or not one might like it. Ratmansky has said in an interview it's a 'ballet feerie' and I can't think of a better name for it. (I wasn't able to read the reviews just yet--paywalls--but hope to soon. Thanks for links.)

I wouldn't even try to reconstruct my thoughts at the time...and as I said I'm now less quick to blame directors than my teen self had been -- even when their decisions seem puzzling to me. I still have happy memories of Jenner's dancing. (When I first posted I failed to notice the posts to which I was responding date back a couple of years ago. I hadn't realized... )

I saw her on tour with the Royal in the U.S. I remember she would dance solos in various full-length works and my friends and I would huddle during intermission and speculate darkly on why we we weren't seeing her in leading roles. We loved her--she had a wonderful presence and I found her dancing really joyful. I remember, too, that when I heard she had left for Australia, I always vaguely held it against Macmillan. (I was very young. I'm now a little more philosophical--mostly--when my favorites aren't cast the way I think they should be. And I don't automatically assume I know better than ballet company directors . Still I do in all seriousness think Jenner was not helped by the 'graduated casting' described by Douglas Allen above.)

I've enjoyed some of the information about Petipa's early life on Amy's "Petipa Society" site (while understanding not every 'i' may be dotted just yet) and I also appreciate her good-natured response to the criticism she is receiving in this discussion, but Lexy's point seems exactly right to me. I think it would add immeasurably to the usefulness and value of the site for it to have proper citation of sources for its claims--not just general signalling to this or that source material. (Proper citation is not a long, tendentious article followed by saying 'this is based on books x, y, and z.' That's fine for us chatting here, but for a site with more historically serious ambitious...not so much.) I think it would be great to have a more scholarly (while still accessible) Petipa site -- and that would mean less partisan presentation as well. "Just the facts" is impossible of course, but a more careful parsing of different sources and perspectives would be a good start. And it would still be plenty colorful. I don't know if that's what the creator of this website wants or if she prefers something more personal and, to be blunt, less substantive. I do think if it's the latter than it should be clearer what it is -- Petipa "fan fiction" (to allude to something Ivy Lin said above). But if the goal is as ambitious as it sounds, then I think the citing of sources, but also the presentation, summary, and weighing of what those sources have to say needs to be somewhat revamped. At least that's my thought.

Regarding Polunin playing Soloviev: Soloviev was one of the all time great Soviet male dancers. Certainly -- or, let's say, in the opinion of many -- he was in the Nureyev/Baryshnikov stratosphere of greatness. He danced with the Kirov and, obviously, never achieved their level of fame. Wikipedia claims he was pressured to join the communist party and did not; from elsewhere in my reading I infer that he sometimes had some difficulties coping within the Soviet system. He committed suicide when he was 36/37 years old. Unfortunately I know his dancing only from film and video. I would not say he danced like a woman, as someone suggested above, though in the video of the Sylphides performance referred to, he certainly dances with poetry and delicacy appropriate to the Kirov version of the ballet. Fortunately, there are a fair number of youtube videos of Soloviev at various stages of his career in a range of roles from Bournonville to Petipa to Gsovsky and Grigorovich (Stone Flower-a particularly charming video). A lot of the best of these videos are in black and white. I'm not obsessed with "the old days" but I don't think I could recommend a better evening to any lover of Russian ballet than sitting and watching these videos. I'm prejudiced perhaps, but I think even Russian-ballet skeptics may find something to love and admire in Soloviev. Full disclosure: the very first ballet I was ever taken to see was the 1965 film of the Kirov in Sleeping Beauty with Alla Sizova and Yuri Soloviev as Aurora and her Prince. I fell in love with ballet at once, and I consider that I owe a huge portion of my life's happiness to those dancers. Hope Polunin can do Soloviev justice!

I can't speak to whether Acosta's race was discussed/reflected on in the early stages of his career -- I do remember it being informally discussed by at least a small number of American fans when he first danced with American Ballet Theatre (albeit discussed in a coded way). I haven't read his memoirs but In at least one recent interview, Acosta has talked about himself as someone who broke down barriers: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/dance/what-to-see/carlos-acosta-nobody-who-looks-like-me-has-ever-played-the-roles/ Even more interesting -- certainly from the perspective of an American fan perhaps (and having some bearing on the context in which Copeland has emerged) -- is this quote in a 2006 interview: '"The fact that I'm the first black Romeo - and I make people forget it - is a big achievement," he says. "If they'd judged me for my looks, and put me in a box, the world would never have seen the Romeo that lies beneath me ... In New York there are black dancers and their aspirations are constantly killed."' (My italics.) Link to interview: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/jul/15/dance.stage

Many of today's most admired and loved Mariinsky dancers--and ones likely to be cast in Swan Lake and Bayadere on tour--do not strike me as particularly lyrical though they are very fine ballerinas. Skorik, one of their more controversial ballerinas. can be rather lyrical even having a rather melting, boneless quality in adagio. (I am perhaps an outlier among Mariinsky fans in having very much enjoyed her dancing when I saw her live. But my impression from the range of reactions she provokes even from people who don't dislike her dancing is that she blows hot and cold. She also has the extreme extensions that not everyone likes.) I also would love to see Novikova and Osmolkina were I in London but would be more than a little surprized if they were dancing Nikiya on tour, barring unexpected injuries to others etc. But who knows? The Mariinsky can be unpredictable. I have to say--whatever the casts--I am very envious of all of you who will be getting to see them this summer!

Really interesting to read people's lists/thoughts . I would add Act III of Napoli from the Bournonville repertory for "classics" both in the sense of enduring masterpieces that have entered the international repertory and in the sense of exemplars of the nineteenth-century ballet 'inheritance.' Act III because that seems to be what has survived genuinely intact and is often presented as a stand alone event. As Pas de Quatre mentions, there is probably more Bournonville that belongs on a list of classics--though much of it has become something of a specialty repertory for the Royal Danish Ballet. I think that sometimes one has to step back a bit from one's personal taste/moods/experiences when trying to evaluate classics. When it comes to plays I'm not always up for the emotional rigors of King Lear, but I don't doubt its status as a classic...Of course one can't step back too much or it just becomes a discussion of what works are most popular with the audience as a whole. I can't say I've ever seen a good performance of Lander's Etudes that I didn't enjoy, but I wouldn't call it a classic. Awful performances can ruin the greatest ballet, though a good score helps avert the worst.

I found your whole post very helpful, but wanted to throw in the exact quote from Balanchine -- at least as I have seen it -- because it has a slightly different twist: "Mr. Ashton and I may make bad ballets, but we never make incompetent ballets." For sure, all choreographers have their failures (whether interesting or boring).

If you have time, then it would be great to hear more about this--I admit I'm especially curious what he had to say about Ratmansky's approach and/or how he sees his own approach as differing from it.

Front row of 3rd tier just off the center (not down the sides of theater if I understand you correctly) is an excellent seat. If you prefer to be a bit closer, then you might want to go down to 2nd tier. But I have sat in the last row of the 3rd tier just off the center and found it pretty good. Actually I have sat in 4th ring and found it not bad at all and I'm someone who, on the whole, does prefer to be close. However, just as I was typing this, now voyager posted and said exactly what I was about to type. The ABT program you mentioned (Symphonic Variations etc.) is perhaps a bit more intimate -- not large scale works with a large corps for example -- and 2nd ring would likely be preferable if it's not too pricey for you. I will also mention that sightlines downstairs are not bad. Banking is good unless you are quite short -- a problem I have, but not everyone does -- and sightlines from the sides, where the tickets are often quite a bit cheaper, are also not bad at all. (In the orchestra you don't want to be too close as the marked banking doesn't start until a little further back -- K/L perhaps? -- and from the first two rows sometimes one can't see feet well depending on how short/tall one is.) But though 2nd ring might hit the sweet spot, I don't think you will find the front of the 3rd ring a problem at all. Hope you have a great time and write about it!