Geoff

We don’t often discuss make up. So here is a perhaps silly question. Was it me or did Katherina Nikelski have a light sheen of gold body paint last night? Perhaps it was just a heavier foundation base than this very light-skinned dancer normally uses and that caught golden lustre reflected off the magnificent palace walls, but in any case it looked very fetching and appropriately exotic for the character.

Almost inevitably. As has been discussed on the Forum many times the RB has got slower over the decades, at least from the 1950s (there are recordings that can be checked) to the late 1970s and then far worse from then on. There are occasional exceptions (I can think of one guest conductor who even made public comments about how much faster the company was in earlier recordings) but he has never been asked back.

Speaking as a professional in this space, budget is only one constraint among many. More money might mean employing more people (who might trip over each other and/or duplicate poor practices) or it might mean employing more expensive people (also not a guarantee, for example I have some sense of the considerable budget allocated to the new website and we all know how that worked out). In general arts organisations and other non profits can tend to arrogance and ideology mixed with less than stellar technical competence. We hope ROH (having suffered from some shockingly dim decisions in the recent past of this department) is giving serious consideration on how to do better.

Reading through recent years of negative Forum comments about ROH departments suggests that the two areas in greatest need of improvement are marketing and the website/online bookings. Given recent improvements in the functioning of the website (I hope I am not speaking too soon) is it too much to hope that senior management will now at last get round to bringing ROH marketing up to a professional standard?

Given how much complaining I have done these last years, it is only fair to say that this morning's booking went very smoothly. No waiting time that I noticed and got everything booked (including Sarasota) within a quarter of an hour. Whatever ROH has fiddled with since the last time, please now don't "improve the experience" any more: if it works, don't fix it!

Many thanks Bluebird. I couldn’t help but notice that it is currently not even listed any more. If one goes to May 31 on the calendar it is not there.

Is it me or has the Ashton Insight for Friday 31 May dropped off the calendar? Has any Friend been able to book for it yet?

According to this Plymouth public booking opens on March 1: https://www.brb.org.uk/stories/2024-25-season-announcement

Has this timing impacted on our bookings? I may be wrong but I understood we were supposed to be able to book October BRB Fille tickets from today for Plymouth and Sadler’s Wells. Nothing doing, the website still says Coming Soon tonight.

That is a polite way of describing what happened to Raymonda. One expert member of the Forum estimated that Tamara Rojo’s rewrite cut 70% of Petipa’s choreography.

And here is a link to the Times review which may deal with the paywall: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/466341e3-28e1-4981-9b4f-7bb96a3ce954?shareToken=cb54e40767717e3c3ea67303b08bd2a2

One review online already, anybody from the Forum seen this show? https://slippedisc.com/2024/02/alastair-macaulay-roh-choreographer-isnt-without-talent/

While we’re still remembering Giselle here is a short clip of Carla Fracci: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2VCgQKtmvU/?igsh=MWhyN2kwajh3OHo0Yg==

Manchester Swan Lake recently (a better report appears in the comments): https://slippedisc.com/2024/01/manchesters-swan-lake-is-ruffled-by-violence/

Please. Mrs Cliff or Miss Durante or Ms Durante. Not Mrs Durante.

Nina Stemme returned last night but I wasn’t there.

An echo from the wings: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2hlBCZifms/

Are you talking about the ballet or the opera? I referred colloquially to “Onegin” recently but meaning the opera, not the ballet, as this is the opera section. Apologies if this has caused confusion.

Even even better would be for the website to be fixed. However this seems to be a bigger problem than first appeared. The website now shows this (interestingly, despite the message being time stamped seven o‘clock this morning, it has only just appeared online):- MAJOR OUTAGE (25/01/24 07:00 GMT) One of our infrastructure providers is currently experiencing major issues, affecting all our websites along with many others around the world. We are working with them to resolve the issue. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. If the problem persists, please contact the box office on +44 (0)20 7304 4000.

Beware the website at the moment: I am getting an announcement of “technical issues”.

I did say I thought I was in a minority on Onegin. I also said why I liked it, which had nothing to do with the doubling (mentioned only as a way of identifying the production). But perhaps I should have made it clearer that I took no view of the doubles, which to me were no more than decoration. Finally saw the Electra last night. Nothing special. A routine production (for which one can be thankful) with few distractions. Unlike the majority, I have no sentimental feelings towards that conductor whose reading of the score I found contrary to Strauss’s intentions. He tried a similar approach recently with Rheingold, which was remarkably successful and congruent with Wagner’s ambitions. The band coped fine with what he asked of them but the result was underwhelming. I have seen many wonderful casts sing this piece (perhaps none better than 1974, Nilsson, Rysanek, Ludwig under Böhm) but last night was not one of them. The crowd went wild at the end so what do I know.

I may be the only person who liked Holten’s Onegin (with the doubling). What I found wonderful was the way his reading explained why the music is so sad from the outset. This was not - as so often - a directorial idea imposed in ignorance or opposition to the score, but a deeply musical illumination of it.

Don’t remember that but do remember Katie Mitchell, at an Insight for the Lucia (as above) swinging her legs and saying much the same, only even more directly.

A number of people have jumped to this conclusion on this thread. I don’t know anything but surely one doesn’t need to have no job in order to apply for one, never mind one that hasn’t even been advertised yet.

As regards the KKKatie production, it gets improved every time it is done. We aren’t the only people who didn’t like what it started out as. The key is the voices, and I don’t know the ones in this upcoming run. But I have booked for the General, to see what I think.