Geoff

Just want to echo the other comments on last night. An excellent performance. Also, to build on discussions elsewhere, the music was indeed well played, and at what seemed to be authentic tempi: it tends to help an evening when that which should be played briskly, is indeed played to time. Also, the general point has been made before: the high quality of the overall performance reflects on the benefits of touring (as has also been remarked upon at performances of the ENB). Compared to the Royal Ballet company, often forced to throw works on to the stage after perhaps not quite enough rehearsal time, while also performing other works (in sometimes very different styles) in the same week, we see the benefit of a troupe comfortable with a work they have performed in many different venues over an extended period. Practice makes perfect, was my overriding feeling last night.

Many thanks Lynette: sad to see so many tickets as yet unsold but the discounts should help. I picked up a good £10 seat at the top for a performance I had not originally booked for.

I have also had the privilege of watching this important recording. As a result I would like to add a comment based on the timing of it. Last night was my second time at this triple bill and, wonderful as some of the dancing was, it gave me the opportunity to test something which concerned me when I saw the show last week. Some commentators have been less than excited by Enigma Variations but are they currently seeing the work as Ashton intended? The original cast danced it in more or less exactly 29 minutes (counting just the music from start to finish) whereas last night's music ran for 31 minutes, which is some 7% slower. There were no stage waits nor interpolations of new music so the only explanation is that the conducting was significantly slower, and therefore, by extension, so was the dancing. There are various possible reasons for this. This particular conductor is not my favourite - my view is that he has the ability to render masterpieces uninteresting by conducting too slowly - and this may simply be his view of Elgar's music. Alternatively (as has been argued elsewhere on this Forum in the past) he is taking account of a cast less drilled in Cecchetti than the original Royal Ballet troupe Ashton created the work on, so perhaps less eager to dance this at the intended speed. This is not to denigrate any specific dancer - Morera, for example, was beautiful last night - but to explore the often disregarded connection between faulty conducting and the subjective experience of a work. I have my fingers crossed for next week's Sleeping Beauty, hoping that the conductor will heed Tchaikovsky's markings and conduct the work to speed, not as we had for so many years (until Koen Kessels put things right). The sluggish pace in the past may have been one reason for people to feel this magnificent classical ballet is "too long", "slow", "boring", and so on.

Indeed! +1

Following an exceptionally sour review from Hugh Canning in last week’s Sunday Times, I wanted to put in a word for the new Don Pasquale, which I saw at yesterday's noon matinee. Despite the unpromising critical context; the unpromising slot (sad to say but weekend matinees can often be slack, for whatever reasons); and the unpromising opening stage image (fashionable neon paired with fashionable Italian working-class design) we had a great time. My companion - a musician visiting the ROH for the first time in 45 years - agreed on the following: * Bryn Terfel has not been so good in a long time. This role seems to suit the current state of his voice. * All the cast did well, and often exceptionally well. * Pido kept things going and together (which is not always easy in this rep) * The production worked and made us laugh (even the fashionable video was - at least in the first half - used to good effect) Well worth a punt, if one is undecided about going. And of course the work is - arguably - Donizetti’s masterpiece.

In case it’s useful here is a discussion thread about the full-length Raymonda from a couple of years ago:

John, Sim, you probably noticed at the time: in the June edition of Dancing Times Clement Crisp was invited in interview to compare todays’s dancers with the great names of the past he saw in his very long career as a critic. He chose...Morera, who is, he said, “someone in whom the music lives, it is a nurturing liquid for her and it is wonderful to behold”.

The troubles of the ‘new’ ROH website (see discussions elsewhere on the Forum) are not helping matters. This morning - using super-privileged, elite, Friends membership - I have just checked on the ticket situation. At the moment (just past 7am) every performance except one shows some (limited and expensive but still) availability on the main page for this production: https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/fidelio-by-tobias-kratzer-dates But clicking through to buy tickets reveals that no tickets at all are available for any show in the run. Not for the first time, the ROH website is contradicting itself.

Something similar applies when booking packages in the Amphitheatre: one gets a discount but on higher priced seats.

Ha! ROH lauded the “professionalism” of the sadly missed Lucy Sinclair. As she had spent the bulk of her previous working life at the BBC - a place I know well - I fear that some of that organisation’s mannerisms may have been transferred to Covent Garden. Pity if so: the series W1A was not a comedy, everything was drawn from real life. Including the lying, the censorship and the focus on corridor politics rather than honouring those who pay.

Indeed. Hope you write back. A couple of suggestions if you do: * Having let off steam here - quite right too! we should all be furious about this sort of typing - I suggest calm forensic questioning for your official note of reply, eg “Thank you for your response. It appears you overlooked a few of my questions. I would be grateful if these could also be replied to. To repeat...” * And then restate the unanswered questions as simply and clearly as possible. * Don’t fall into a trap about the words “sold out”: as the Friday Rush seats are not yet sold, the house is not yet “sold out”, even if it (probably) is in the sense you mean. * Don’t forget to ask the obvious follow-up to their point about “huge demand”. Given they anticipated “huge demand”, did they consider limiting the number of seats sold (as they do elsewhere), either for an initial limited period (as they do elsewhere) or overall (as they also do)? And if not, why not? * Similarly you might like to ask them what they are going to do about the seats available on secondary sites, given the official statements by ROH and Alex Beard at the time of Forza. Good luck with this and keep us posted. If they send back more waffle, copy it here, so it can be drawn to the attention of the ROH bosses.

We can be confident that Lady MacMillan approved the changes. In fact she may well have suggested some of them. No doubt she was also consulted during rehearsals of this revival.

For those with Twitter accounts you might like this glimpse of the opening of the BBC’s “Face The Music” series with Lesley Collier looking great:- https://t.co/IeK6LEp2R8 Sadly the whole episode does not seem to be online but as it apparently exists somewhere, maybe one day it will turn up. Does anyone remember how she did (I saw the programme many times but have no memory of this episode)?

The link has changed since I posted, see my later comment. Sorry for any confusion.

Clicking on the link today shows what should have been there in the first place, hence my original post (which is now null). Surely a coincidence, it can’t be that the ROH website elves actually take note of this Forum? If they did they would surely have fixed (eg) the calendar a year ago, never mind all the other matters we have drawn attention to.

Don’t think twice, just go! Despite much duff stagecraft in this latest production, Osipova knows what the audience expects from the show and keeps things fizzing, including some surprises (including those which, as revealed at an Insight evening, catch out the stage crew and the follow spot operators). There are other ballerinas in the world today with perhaps a more refined classical technique but not many capable of generating the same level of excitement as well as passion. Sorry, off topic. ADDED...PS Apologies, thinking back to what James wrote I realise I got confused by the wording of penelopesimpson’s post. This is actually about whether to book in regard to David Hallberg, sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick. Hallberg will be beautiful but my (offtopic) point stands: one should go and see Osipova dance this, whoever the partner is. Sorry for being muddled.

We were posting at exactly the same time JohnS, using exactly the same words but coming to opposite conclusions (I on behalf of someone else). Shows how much room for different views there is!

I couldn’t make last night but can offer a comment from the person who took my ticket. She, no Osipova fan incidentally, said that her principle reason for not liking Osipova’s Manon has been the sense that her Manon is too knowing from the outset, too calculating, too strong in fact, with the result that the pressures on her, so clearly spelled out by MacMillan, have less dramatic impact. However that was apparently not so last night, Osipova giving what she called a far more nuanced portrayal and indeed winning her over. Can’t judge, of course, but I would say this is another piece of evidence to suggest that Osipova is always worth watching as her interpretations rarely stand still.

Well done on getting to (at least a bit of) the truth. Customers do not like being misled or obfuscated or patronised, all of which seemed to be the way of the late lamented Lucy Sinclair. One hoped things would get better with her departure: seems sadly not to be the case. I for one cannot understand why initial ticket purchases for Fidelio were not capped at two or four per person (such restrictions can always be lifted nearer show date). The ROH do this all the time: currently I can’t get in to an Insight evening with lots of seats available as that would exceed my allocation.

Just clicked on a programme page for next June. Is it me or have those wonderfully talented and amusing web designers included a deliberate mistake to keep us all guessing? https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/tombeaux-monotones-i-and-ii-symphonic-dances-details

No harm in sending a note to the ROH Customer Services email. Just say: - I have recently experienced this - It is not the first time (perhaps including a link to one of the more detailed posts in this discussion) - Can you provide guidance on what I can do if this happens again in the future? At the very least this means the issue will be discussed again internally and maybe we can all learn something. Just a thought.

This is known, although originally it wasn’t. The independently purchased promotion of the young DB was first a ‘secret’ (presumably as it was thought to be ‘not very Royal Ballet’) and then a ‘scandal’ (at least to some, because of those who resented what was seen as an unfair advantage). After a while the story got lost in the general adulation. Not sure this has ever been written up properly. In any case, some would say it pays to advertise.

The Fonteyn gala was one of the better evenings I spent at ROH in the last year, so maybe the powers that be have decided to do such things more often again. In any case, good!

Ivy Lin, thank you very much for that clip. It strikes me, given similar comparisons one could make with the Osipova of ten years (or even less) ago, perhaps also connected to an injury, that the two of them make something of a poignant pairing.