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I’m very sad to hear this! I didn’t know him particularly, but we exchanged tickets on this forum a few times, and sometimes found ourselves in adjacent seats at Covent Garden.

I did consider that as an option. And it’s certainly a lot cheaper...

I know all the places you mean, Janet - I’ve stayed in that Ibis Budget and that Travelodge multiple times (typically at well under £50 a night) and I know the Wrens as a pub as it’s where people go after Opera North. But all are enormously expensive (like everywhere else) over that Bank Holiday! (I could find absolutely nothing under £400 for three nights, in Leeds itself rather than travelling in from elsewhere, with the exception of a student accommodation facility on the other side of town, which wouldn’t have been adequate as they had limited check-in hours and I’d have had to arrive late at night...)

I’m still free over August Bank Holiday but have mainly been put off booking TBR by the eye-watering cost of accommodation (I visit Leeds quite frequently, and usually find it a very reasonably-priced city to stay in, but apparently not that weekend...) For future reference, does anyone who has attended this TBR session before have any hotel tips?

Mine too!

Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s the one I’m referring to! Though I now suspect Dawnstar’s post may have been referring to the second of those.

I don’t think so - impressive though it also was, I think the one in the picture was early in Act 2, whereas the one I commented on was in Act 3.

I saw opening night cast - Rodkin/Denisova - and if we're talking about the same lift, the thing that made me gasp was when she brought her lower leg up to meet her upper leg (at an angle of maybe "one o'clock") with no apparent signs of effort!

Was this a deliberate choice of words, yvonnep - much better in the role of Odette specifically, or as both halves of the dual Odette/Odile role?

Agreed, Colman. When a ballerina is wearing tights for a classical role, I think it’s fine only to see the beauty rather than the strength, as that’s what that genre of ballet wants you to see. But I think the Vogue pic is a great representation of what really constitutes a top ballerina.

“Poor me, I’m so bored with these dreadful country peasants gossiping about me, so let’s just stir stuff up so I can have a bit of fun, even though I know that if i took a moment to consider the feelings of others, I’d realise how much it would upset my best friend”. All part of the spoiled, whiny, stuck-up, entitled attitude I referred to above!

I'm not sure. One other thing: he is LESS sympathetic in the ballet than the opera. Opera-Onegin rejects Tatyana quickly, politely and privately; Ballet-Onegin rips up her letter in front of her face at her own name-day party... I always like the fact that whereas in the opera, Tatyana gets up and walks out on him at the end, in the ballet she tells him to get lost.

While it can be partly explained away by the character's youth, he IS a bit of a spoiled brat, though. Always banging on about how bored he is, how other people are beneath him, and of course, totally convinced that he must always be right. Even when he returns from his seven-year exile/absence, while he comes back as a more rounded character, the first thing he does in Act3 Sc1 of the opera is whinge about being bored. (Sorry, this is a bit off-topic for a casting thread!)

Oh, that is interesting. So she's got it under her belt, as it were. In which case I really don't understand why anyone would consider her not to be a prime choice for next season's RB cinema relay.

I actually don't understand the point being made. Is it that Cuthbertson is extremely inexperienced in the role compared with what one would expect from a principal dancer of her age, and compared with her colleagues, and that therefore she may not have been the most obvious choice for the cinema relay? Fair enough, but looking at this from another perspective, she's spent SO much of her career sick or injured since being promoted to Principal (is it a total of almost 4 years?) that she has missed out on several cinema relay opportunities which may otherwise have been hers, so her appearance in several next season seems a bit of a welcome catch-up. I have been attending the RB regularly since 2011, and have booked for her Swan Lake performances every time she's been cast, and yet she's never been fit to turn up for any of them! So I for one will be trying again and wishing her better fortune this time.