Geoff

Friends are given access only to (some of) what ROH refers to as the General rehearsal, ie the dress rehearsal. This is as near as possible simply a full run through of the whole show, exactly like the first night (in the theatre world this might be labelled a “preview”). So for the opera you (usually) get the first night stars who, although one is alerted to them possibly not “singing out”, they almost invariably do, giving their all. Which they can manage as the final opera rehearsal is always scheduled at least a couple of days before the first night. For ballet it can be different, in that the final rehearsal will often be on the day of the first night and so at least some different dancers tend to appear (meaning that dedicated types can see two different casts on the same day, just like booking a matinee and an evening performance).

Good questions and (some) good analysis JNC, welcome to the Forum. I am sure the Forum will be quick to tell you that many (most?) rarely if ever sit in the stalls, so you will find like-minded folk here. You make a lot of specific points, which I am sure others will go through with you in detail in due course. I’ll just make one observation: over the years I have been reading this Forum there have regularly been posts saying, in effect, not enough left over on General Booking day. So at just over a quid a week (which you can cancel after a year if it turns out not to work for you) I would try being a Friend for the next seasons and then reassess. Imho.

Anyone see this 20th anniversary show? MacMillan’s Playground + Communion + Between and Within + Imprint.

The key sentences, at least from the perspective of another long thread here, are: (Apologies for poor snapshot editing)

Quite why Stonewall (whose document this is) gets such priority is beyond me. One might just as well attach similar agenda-driven texts from, I dunno, VoteLeave, the Catholic Church or my local greengrocer. But then I am not up to date with modern-day HR law - or indeed the forms the ROH is obliged to complete - so maybe clients of the Arts Council have no choice in the matter.

Quite right! Silly me, I'm going on Saturday afternoon. Sorry for the muddle.

Hm. Based on Kosky's recent pointless Carmen at ROH, I assume there won't be any nuns but instead a group of male strippers living together in a Berlin-y Weimar-y nightclub. However, I am much looking forward to this Live from the Met tomorrow: I know the Met's production to be true to the work.

From downloading the (rather instructive) pdf attachments at the bottom of this ad one sees the person will report to "Head of Digital Products", whoever that is and whatever they do (make the website worse and then making it a little bit better but not as good as it was before, perhaps?) Not entirely clear but perhaps these people and their associated jargon fall into the realm of the notorious Lucy Sinclair, the ROH's "Director of Media & Audiences". As others have pointed out, before joining the ROH Lucy spent the bulk of her career at the BBC, home of W1A and the best funded generator of jargon in the UK.

Closing date May 13: http://recruitment.roh.org.uk/vacancyView.php?requirementId=3502

Anyone at the CBSO Mahler concert in Birmingham in April? See the comments after the review for a discussion on anticipated but involuntary audience noise (broadcast on Radio 3 this Friday): https://theartsdesk.com/classical-music/cbso-volkov-symphony-hall-birmingham-review-mahler-goes-bauhaus

Apologies John, too many tabs open on my PC. Maybe this one works (alternatively just paste into Google and see what comes up):- www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/dancing-pinhead-pricing

John, it is still online here: www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/dancing-pinhead-pricing What I was asking about was the Lucy Sinclair powerpoint, which Yaffa found and which was online for a while until the link was locked. So perhaps I might shift your question to the moderators to being about the powerpoint document. Now that it has been passed to me I would be happy to post it here if allowed (and someone explains how to do this technically).

It will no doubt be some kind of tick box system. The Arts Council already includes a multitude of tests as part of the paperwork issued to those who want its support, so if anyone on the Forum has copies to hand, posting examples might be useful to this discussion.

...and just an hour later, a kind (and punctilious) member of the Forum has dropped a copy of the document into my inbox. So all the information is safe, even if slightly harder to access. Maybe someone will post it on one of those file sharing sites like Scribd?

Just wanted to refer back to this document...only to discover that it has since been "locked" behind a password etc. If anyone was sensible enough to download it at the time and keep a copy, might they contact me by PM?