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bridiem

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Everything posted by bridiem

  1. bridiem
    Good luck @Dawnstar! I hope you get there in time.
  2. bridiem
    This is very rude and also a false equivalence. A special offer intended for Friends obviously cannot legitimately be shared; all that has now been shared is casting information that brings no benefit except knowledge. Who knows why the ROH hasn't got round to publicising the casting more widely, but it's clearly not privileged information.
  3. bridiem
    I agree that the dates/crowded (and repetitive) programming in those few weeks won't help.
  4. bridiem
    Yes, I hope sales will pick up too. But I think that (as discussed elsewhere) marketing does matter in selling programmes. And if the whole thrust of the RB's 'sell' is geared towards the big MacMillans, Swan Lake/Nutcracker, and McGregor, it must make it more difficult selling other types of works/programmes. Labelling older works as 'heritage' is a big no-no as far as I'm concerned. And only programming such works in separate bills is unlikely to help. Audiences need to be educated (and I'm not saying that from a lofty standpoint - I'm still learning; but in my early years of ballet-going I was able to see all sorts of works of different styles/eras/choreographers, often at the RB). Ballet isn't just entertainment and/or tragedy and/or cool gymnastics. It's an incredibly expressive, interesting and flexible art form, and there are many wonderful works from earlier eras that should be shown regularly, and that's what audiences should expect. (Not everything can be sold in the breathless way that so many of the livestreams are sold.)
  5. bridiem
    I like the blonde wig! (Ducks for cover...).
  6. bridiem
    Ball is guesting elsewhere - mentioned on another thread.
  7. bridiem
    Well I'd all in favour of MacMillan 'overload' if that's what it takes. (And no-one seems to worry about the current threat of McGregor overload.) I understand Lady MacMillan's sentiment, but in fact MacMillan was known to be a genius by very many people during his lifetime. And his death was announced as a leading news item on national radio, even though he was no longer director of the RB. So although sometimes deemed to be controversial, he was certainly not unappreciated.
  8. bridiem
    I agree, and whereas in the first cast I found the Doctor and the Captain quite cartoonish and there was some laughter around where I was sitting, this time I found them absolutely terrifying. That may partly be thanks to the many illuminating posts I've read here since last week, especially @JohnS's reference to Otto Dix paintings; but since this time there was also dead silence around me, I think it may have also had something to do with the performance/cast. I thought that both Gary Avis and Kevin Emerton were brilliant. I hope that the largely very positive reviews for this bill will have encouraged Kevin O'Hare to regard MacMillan one-acters as as important to his oeuvre as the full-lengths, and to programme various of them regularly and not just as a one-off celebration-type bill. Yes, MacMillan was a genius. So, make use of him!! (Ditto Ashton, of course...).
  9. bridiem
    Well, I'd like to think that, @Emeralds, but I'm not too sure! She does have skills and she does offer advice etc, but it's all done in a very - er - silly way, frankly, and there's a lot of fluff too - that all seems to be part of the attraction... But it's all done very deliberately, and it's clearly very successful. Oh well.
  10. bridiem
    That must be my most bizarre booking experience ever: I'd booked 3 of the Ashton bills 'blind', and now having just received the casting I realised that they didn't produce the right combination of casting at all. So I've returned all 3 tickets I'd booked and have booked for 4 other performances instead... oh well. At least I am now managing to see most of the (very enticing) casts.
  11. bridiem
    Yes, although to be fair there is sometimes a degree of professionalism behind what they do. My cousin's daughter did a course in make-up for stage, screen and etc, and does (very idiosyncratic) make-up/lifestyle videos on TikTok that have attracted more and more viewers so she now has 1 million followers (!). She evidently makes a lot of money from brand sponsorships etc, and she now travels a lot. She's now in her early 20s... I find it completely baffling and meaningless, but she does work hard at what she does. (Whether it's worth doing is, of course, another matter entirely...).
  12. bridiem
    To be honest, I think that it would be well worth seeing Osipova in SL even if her fouettés (if she does them) are not at their best. She's still an amazing dancer in so many ways.
  13. bridiem
    I'm sure there will also be pleasure at (at least some of) what IS being presented; and casting details are only an issue if/when they are getting later and later. Your characterisation (caricature?) of members' reactions is therefore rather unfair, imho. And you do seem to interpret any criticism of the ROH as 'coming down on it like a ton of bricks', which it isn't (necessarily). But I don't think we need to just nod appreciatively no matter what is happening.
  14. bridiem
    It's ridiculous; and how does she fit in a seat wearing a tutu?! Or did she take it off before sitting down? Actually, I don't really want to think about it any more...
  15. bridiem
    But Odile's 'beauty and charm' are a trick used by her and Rothbart to lure him away from Odette - they're not genuine (whether or not there's an actual magic spell involved). And if a black swan-like costume helps to emphasize both the evil and the intention to confuse and deceive, I think that's very effective and appropriate (and more interesting).
  16. bridiem
    Well he'd already fallen in love with Odette, so (from the evil point of view) the more Odile looks like her the better. He's being tricked, not just being seduced by another woman.
  17. bridiem
    At risk of repeating myself: Odile exactly imitates (the extremely swan-like) Odette in order to deceive Siegfried. So referring to the 'black swan' does not seem to me to be unreasonable. But I think we have different acceptance-levels of what is or isn't reasonable, so perhaps there's no point discussing it further.
  18. bridiem
    Yes - but as you say, when Siegfried falls in love with her - and whenever we see her - she's a woman (who nevertheless still looks like a swan...).
  19. bridiem
    Well yes - as you say, when Siegfried falls in love with Odette she's not a swan, but she's doing a pretty good impression of one... so Odile, in order to deceive Siegfried, imitates Odette. Neither are actually swans, but who cares. I think it's a scintillating story.
  20. bridiem
    Thanks very much, @Emeralds - very kind of you. My condolences to you and your family too.
  21. bridiem
    I agree, but I suspect that for me, this was part of the problem with Different Drummer at its première/in its early years - it followed on from MacMillan's recent creations of Isadora and Valley of Shadows and I'd just had enough. Torture, anguish, murder, suicide etc all over again, this time plumbing the depths (of a bath) with what almost seemed to be a deliberate attempt to be as grim and relentless as possible. I knew - and know - that this wasn't the whole picture for MacMillan, but it was beginning to feel like it.
  22. bridiem
    I agree with this; when watching Danses concertantes, I was reminded of how I felt when watching Duo Concertant at Sadler's Wells the other week. The realisation that this was a choreographer who had complete belief in ballet as an art form and complete mastery (already!) of how to use it in a way unique to them. On the subject of Balanchine... on the tube last night after leaving the ROH, I heard a couple of men talking and heard his name mentioned. So I looked up in interest to see who was talking. But as the conversation went on, I realised that what one of them had actually said was 'balance sheet' not 'Balanchine'... Oh well. I suppose it just shows how completely ballet-focussed I am.
  23. bridiem
    When the curtain went up on Danses concertantes, I was both surprised and delighted at the designs, which I hadn't remembered at all (strange, because they're pretty memorable!). I also thought that the backdrop was more like John Piper than Georgiadis, and that added to the period air of the piece. The choreography was so inventive and consistently interesting and unexpected; a bit like Scènes de Ballet on steroids. Can't wait to see it again. Different Drummer: for the first 15 minutes or so, I was feeling quite dismayed (as before) with this - it seemed to me to be not so much nightmareish as cartoonish (and there was quite a lot of unfortunate giggling going on around me, which I don't think was the intended reaction). I think the problem mainly applies in respect of the Captain and the Doctor. But as the work progressed I found it more and more absorbing and some of the images and moves were very powerful, though it still seemed to be more a series of vignettes rather than a coherent work. But by the end, I'd been drawn in and I did find it both moving and shocking. The murder is horrific; I don't think the suicide is very clear (just as well I'd read the programme) since he seems to just wash his hands and then lie down in the bath and pull the cover back on. So ultimately I found this an unsatisfying work, but with much more to recommend it than I felt when I first (and last) saw it. Francesca Hayward was superb as Marie; I thought that Marcelino Sambé danced beautifully and gave it everything, but he doesn't strike me as ideal casting for the role - I would have liked to see Bracewell and/or Richardson do it. I find it difficult to write about Requiem. It seems to be to have come to fruition fully formed, as if no other steps could have been used and MacMillan was simply expressing what was already there. I think I barely breathed from start to finish. Unbearably beautiful, and unbearably moving. Especially because today (now) is the first anniversary of my brother's death, and we used the In Paradisum movement at his funeral (and indeed at our mother's funeral in 2014). To watch the souls being led gently into Paradise, all fear gone, with their heads held high, was quite overwhelming. All the dancers were magnificent, and rightly got a great reception. Why this masterpiece is performed so infrequently I will never understand.
  24. bridiem
    Or of Requiem...
  25. bridiem
    Wonderful!
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