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Or you can hear the *conductor* grunting, or singing along with orchestral parts!

Although I attend live performances several times a week, and as such can rarely afford to sit in the expensive seats (indeed, in a seat at all), on the occasions when I do treat myself, I will always choose proximity to the stage (e.g. at Covent Garden, the front row Stalls or good Side Stalls Circle) over supposedly the "best" seats (central Stalls or Grand Tier). I treat myself because of particularly special artists or combinations thereof; all my favourite artists are emotionally expressive and I need to be able to see their faces. The same goes for both opera and ballet.

This is ALWAYS the case at "sold out" Insights, and it's very annoying. I very much doubt the empty seats are the result of individual purchasers not returning their tickets. I imagine it's a case of ticket allocations being made to certain groups and/or company staff & VIPs and then somebody not keeping tabs on whether those allocations are being fully used and ensuring that they are returned to public sale where available. But I could be wrong.

This is all very well if you are UK-based, but the OP is based in Istanbul...

It seems soprano Ailish Tynan is involved in the music too...

In my experience the Royal Mail next-day delivery service is very reliable.

Hamilton didn't either, as far as I remember.

If your child is going to ask, at full volume, every ten seconds, throughout Mercutio’s death scene “IS HE GOING TO DIE?” (and once during Tybalt’s, which is a lot shorter) I suggest they *may* be a little too young for this. Kish is really good as Tybalt...

Also, a belt-and-braces approach to a minor cast change: David Yudes’s promotion to Lead Mandolin from the ensemble of mandolin dancers (and the resulting shuffle to the ensemble) was both displayed at the programme sales point by the cloakroom AND announced before the curtain rose.

I can oblige, by reporting on a total lighting blackout for several seconds during the opening scene of today’s matinee - coming back up in the nick of time for the fight to start, after which we were treated to a minute or two of “disco lighting” while the problem was further resolved. It seems OK now!

As an opera follower at ROH I actually had had no idea that Pappano wasn’t around next season, though I know that had he not been renewing his contract, next season would have been his last.

I'm not going this evening, but if you go out onto the terrace outside the Amphitheatre restaurant during the intervals of any RB performance, you will usually find a sociable little gathering of Balletco-ers at one of the tables.

They have certainly tweaked something for the better today; I'm not techie enough to know what, but for a long time (about a year?) the production pages haven't loaded properly on my work computer - displaying in plain text and with the frames all wrong, whether I used Firefox or IE. Today, they're suddenly fine.

I'm aware of this, but it ultimately makes no difference as I'll still be booking all of next season in one membership period. I only need to delay it by a couple of weeks, so I can pick my membership level according to the quality of the season.

I have heard - I don't know if it's true, but it was on Twitter so I'm not sharing something I was told in confidence - that the Linbury season and the main house season work to different timescales, the Linbury being finalized later, so the announcement now has to wait until both are ready. Which seems rather a case of the tail wagging the dog. I received my membership renewal pack yesterday and am going to have to ask them to temporarily delay my auto-renewal as I only ever pick what level to renew at on the basis of the contents of the season press release!

The opera was premiered by youngsters - students of the Moscow Conservatory. I’ve seen two London productions with very young casts (at British Youth Opera and the RAM), both of which were memorably good and the latter excellent.

I haven't read the Pushkin, but know the opera well, and they are all, theoretically, meant to be really young! Onegin arrives back after his seven years away, and says how bored and world-weary he is at the grand old age of 26.

And I forgot to say... I'm an introvert and would never have thought I'd get along with a teacher with as madcap a personality as David. But the above paragraph is the key. For all the silliness, the teaching's perfectly serious.

I promised I'd post again to talk about David Kierce's classes so here we are. As I said early in this thread, I first tried one of David's Sunday-morning Absolute Beginner classes at Central shortly before I started my regular classes at City Lit, when I hadn't set foot in a dance studio for over a decade. (As it happened, that was the day he decided to refresh the photos on his website, so I am immortalized in one of the pictures in all my slightly-overweight, not-as-young-as-I-used-to-be glory.) I'm never going to be a regular at these classes - being a church musician, I'm rarely free on Sunday mornings, and Thursdays are one of the days I usually save for going to the theatre - but have got into the habit of going when I'm free, and a couple of weeks ago I finally achieved the distinction of having a total beginner placed next to me on the barre because I vaguely know what I'm doing I really like the basic rigour of these classes. The fact that the exercises are so simple (no turning and barely any port de bras) that I can concentrate on getting my body placement right without having to THINK too much about it. This is in contrast to every other class I have ever done, where there's more centre work, arms, and combinations, and I get a mental workout as well as a physical one. I wouldn't want this to be my only regular class as I think I'd soon find it quite samey, but as a contribution to a more eclectic schedule I think it's really doing me good. @Kate_N I think I might give myself the benefit of a few months more experience before I start attempting classes labeled "Beginner/General"... But when I do, it's good to know I'd have the option of several different days a week. I was hoping to give the Tuesday-evening Absolute Beginner class at LRBS a go last week, but ended up getting detained too late in the office. And now I won't have an opportunity to do so for the foreseeable future, as Tuesday is my regular class day and term starts next week. I'm considering trying the Sunday 1:30pm one this weekend, however, as it is literally the only class in town at an appropriate level which fits in with this week's insane schedule and logistics. If I like it it could become a more frequent thing, as I often find myself passing through Clapham Junction around 12:30pm on a Sunday on my way back from a choir job.

Sorry! 😁 Yes, absolutely. On the basis of having attended a grand total of one of her classes (a Friday 7pm at Central), I concur with both parts of this. She caught me making a "concentrating face" and told me I looked like a turtle. And at one point during centre practice I let my turnout go on my standing leg, corrected it, and she immediately said "your foot read my mind". But the number of approving nods was pleasing. Also, on the pastoral side, I liked that Hannah started by asking the names of everyone she hadn't taught before. I found her combinations at the barre longer and less immediately memorable than some, but I am sure that was simply to do with not being used to her style. I don't doubt that after a few more of her classes it'll inherently come more naturally to me. And her class felt like a physically-exerting workout more than any other class I've taken. She set a changement exercise at the end of class and made us keep doing it until we got it right. I came out of that class feeling like I'd run a 5km. I will definitely be returning to this class (or the Saturday one at Danceworks) on a semi-regular basis, and it's feasible for me to do so - on most average weeks I am free either on Friday early evening or Saturday mid afternoon. I've decided against signing up to that class I was considering at The Place on Mondays for practical reasons (can’t do 2 of the dates, both of which are in the same part of term as all the Bank Holidays, so I think continuity would be an issue), but will aim to attend one of Hannah's classes most weeks alongside my regular Tuesday class at City Lit, and to drop in at David's on the odd occasion when I'm free (of which more in a separate post).

I took David Kierce’s class again this evening and (presumably because of the bank holiday weekend) it was a lot less rammed than usual - room for the whole class to do grands battements on the barre without having to do it half the class at a time, and lots of really good personal corrections. Also bumped into my barre buddy from my regular class who was sampling David’s class for the first time 🙂 Great way to spend a Thursday evening.

Oooh, I’ll pass that on. Thank you. My friend is freelance so I believe can set her own schedule to a reasonable extent.

Quick and slightly off-topic (location-wise) question: a friend not on this forum, who did a fair bit of ballet as a younger adult but hasn't done so for years, is tentatively looking for a regular class near her home in the Putney area. Please pipe up if you have any recommendations!

When I heard that the ballet was called Medusa, my first thought - in the knowledge that there is vocal music by Purcell involved - was the reference to a different snake-haired figure in "Music for a While". I suppose I'll find out soon enough if I'm onto something. Music for a while Shall all your cares beguile. Wond'ring how your pains were eas'd And disdaining to be pleas'd Till Alecto free the dead From their eternal bands, Till the snakes drop from her head, And the whip from out her hands.

Just to add a link to my thread that Kate recommended... Though as Kate says, it may be something more advanced that the OP is in need of. (I need to go and post again on that thread actually, having finished my first term of Alex's beginner classes, as well as trying out a few drop-ins. I had my first taste of a Hannah Frost class last Friday.)