Geoff

Ticket gone now

Hi Elisabeth, please check your messages (PM in forum jargon) - I have just written to you!

I was sorry to have to miss this cinema transmission (as by coincidence I had to miss one last year): has anyone noticed any encore screenings scheduled for London?

I have a central SCS available for the last performance of Jewels on 21 April (eticket). Face value is £9. Please PM if interested.

Just trying to make sense of this theory in a Royal Opera House context:-- * Lets assume that Lull is on to something and that some ROH tickets end up with a vendor who uses dynamic pricing (we know the ROH does not use it directly but only sells tickets at fixed face value) * So if ROH shows a performance as "Sold out" this will encourage people to buy tickets at higher prices elsewhere. * So if the ROH eventually gets unsold tickets back from this vendor (which, the theory goes, is what has just happened) the trade off for the ROH can only be:- WE AT ROH MAKE SO MUCH MORE MONEY FROM OUR CUT OF SOME OVERPRICED SEATS THAT IT IS WORTH US ENDING UP WITH SEATS UNSOLD AT NORMAL PRICES. Does that make sense?

For those interested in the life of Doreen Wells, now Marchioness of Londonderry, I have just come across an interesting section about her in the memoirs of her friend, the writer Brian Masters ("Getting Personal"). Perhaps his recollections are already well-known. If not, and if people have a serious interest but have trouble locating the book (published 2002), feel free to send me a PM.

Sorry Lindsay, don't agree with you on this (as it happens I spent some of the 1980s working on a low budget TV quiz show): I find all three acts elegant and cleverly designed. On at least some performances this run, the audience has applauded at the opening of an act, in part in response to the glamour of the setting.

Just out of tonight's performance, Lamb/McRae stepped in instead of Takada/Campbell in Rubies. This was my fifth (?) time this run - including the General and the Russian gala a few weeks ago - of seeing McRae do Rubies. I would say that tonight - while being just as technically dazzling as ever, rightly eliciting cheers and bursts of applause - it seemed almost as if he has been reading the irked comments on here and adjusting accordingly. Less constant smiling, except when "in character" and towards the end, and this made a good impression. Vadim, on the other hand, seemed more smiley than I have ever seen him - and that in turn suited him. Made for more of a personality. In any case, another great night.

Not many at the Phoenix in East Finchley (usually rammed) either. But then it's a new(ish) work, based on a book many people in the UK don't know. I know what you mean Trog. My heart sank slightly when the (always amazing) presenter, who yesterday I finally worked out is the head of the Bolshoi press office, told us that the book A Hero Of Our Time is "perhaps the most famous book in Russian literature" (there was me thinking this might be War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov or Eugene Onegin). My sense is that the makers of this ballet therefore relied heavily on the audience's familiarity with the source material, a familiarity we don't share. Having looked at a summary of the book online it seems the novel is not only episodic but also multilayered in its narrative styles and somewhat interior in its expression (indeed as hinted at by the presenter of the ballet). This might further remove it from direct appreciation by a western audience. Which is another way of saying, like many novels, particularly clever and complicated ones, it is not perhaps obviously well suited to be set as a ballet. However my real problem with the ballet was the relatively limited range of choreographic expression. There was a lot of dancing, yes, and it was all pretty amazing in a Bolshoi sort of a way, but the vocabulary struck me as fairly repetitive, which may have drawn attention to narrative slackness. Perhaps that is another reason you might have found it dull? I have a completely different question: anyone know why the Bolshoi website has this marked as "Adults only"? Yes, the choreography for the women had a few visit-to-the-gynaecologist lifts but everyone stayed dressed and nothing explicit happened, so what am I missing?

Anyone got an online link for the Hero Of Our Time cast (no cast list at the Phoenix again)?

Just out of my first time seeing the Naghdi/Ball/Takada/Campbell/Heap/Lauren/Vadim cast (having by chance seen the first cast three times): wow, maybe even better! And Mr B nailed it too!

And, another reminder, the link is STILL live.:- http://www.theoperaplatform.eu/en/opera/donizetti-lucrezia-borgia#xtor=EPR-38-[General] Another taster would be to jump to La Devia's final entrance - at 2 hours 29 minutes. Enjoy!

I LOVE this page: primarily a page for buying tickets, it has a synopsis, which (on my machine anyway) has a paragraph hidden from view as it "Contains spoilers". Spoilers for the plot of Swan Lake, that has made my day! On a serious note, I see this season is "celebrating" Kenneth MacMillan. That makes this coming year different from the last ones exactly how, Lady M?

Come on, the link still works: give this a try! At minute 22 Lucrezia Borgia enters in a gondola - and a little over ten minutes later, the crowd goes crazy. Devia (a year short of seventy) delivers a humdinger of an entrance area, the like of which we haven't heard at ROH for a pretty long time. No wonder, when Netrebko pulled out of ROH Norma, some people, who had just heard Devia sing Norma in Paris, suggested her. See what you think!

Bit more (and some pictures) here:- http://www.urban75.org/london/goodwins-court.html

Pretty traditional - and actually delightful - production. The show tends to be a banker so I am sure tickets will shift nearer the time (as has been discussed here in the past, London audiences are making up their minds later and later these days). Also it has been on a fair bit in the last years - and of course Donizetti does not arose the interest of the truly obsessed audience members in the way that, say, Wagner does. Hope you go as you should have a great time!

Many thanks everyone, particularly John: this works well!

I have pointed to the online site The Opera Platform in the past as sometimes amazing things turn up there. One such is currently live (don't know how long it will stay up): Lucrezia Borgia, starring the amazing Mariella Devia. No idea how good the show is, am looking forward to settling down later to enjoy it (or at least her). The link is here:- http://www.theoperaplatform.eu/en/opera/donizetti-lucrezia-borgia#xtor=EPR-38-[General]

Only just seen this: is your ticket for the 8th still available or did you give it back already?

Last night it seemed to me that the cast of In The Middle - strong and focussed dancing taken for granted of course - do not quite have the attack or the attitude I remember being such an integral part of the work. Caesar Corrales came closest, with a bigger, stronger performance that had those sexy witty hints of just not seeming to care, which to me are what makes this piece more than just exercises. Another way of making the same point: like with Balanchine, there is a lot of walking in this work, yet somehow the mood of the walking last night was not stroppy / insouciant / 'cool' enough. Great dancing though. I liked the Hammerklavier, if only as this is one of my favourite movements from all of Beethoven. Maybe there should be a separate thread about using music which is perhaps too complex, subtle, involving to be danced to. Certainly I kept finding my attention being drawn away from the dancing as I was concentrating too hard on the music. The Rite is sensational, what a work! This has to be great news for ENB. I hadn't seen it before so have no point of comparison: perhaps someone who knows it could comment on whether the more traditional ballet moves were perhaps more 'pure' (careful? accurate? 'better'?) than is idiomatic for the work. In other words where is the balance between classical training / technique and the theatrical demands of the piece?

New software question: has the useful function to enter a discussion thread and then jump to the latest unread postings within it (the ones one has not yet read) disappeared? I can find a button at the top of the page which leads to a rather scary overview page of ALL unread content across the whole site, but the little button, specific to each thread, seems not to be there.

This is an important point, of current significance well beyond the world of ballet. A recent court case showed that just because Katie Hopkins deleted a tweet within two hours of posting it, this was not enough to save her from an expensive libel action, which she lost ten days ago. I have the link to the (rather interesting) judgement if anyone would like it. It may be reversed on appeal but for the time being, a deleted tweet is still a tweet.

Well well. Maybe we should post our own comments on that site to let Couchman know what we think about this.

Human Seasons. So the choreographer has just shown he takes his work seriously (and perhaps that he is thin-skinned). Good. Ok. But what of the work itself? Having recently read a large number of posts about Sleepng Beauty, I admit to being astonished at the number of people who cheerfully posted that they find Sleeping Beauty "boring". Not how it has been danced by someone/s, not any particular production nor any particular performance nor under any particular conductor, but the actual work itself. So if The Sleepng Beauty is "boring", what on earth is Human Seasons? Sorry.

Has it turned up on YouTube (they often appear for a few days)? I don't read Russian so don't know what to search for.