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bridiem

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Everything posted by bridiem

  1. That's ridiculous. Surely anyone could have done it!
  2. Thank you, @Linnzi5, but there would be every point in you writing your thoughts so please do!
  3. What a terrific performance! For me, Bracewell's Des Grieux was at the centre of this tragedy. From the moment he saw Manon in Act 1, he loved her completely - eros, agape, the lot. All expressed in the most beautiful, lyrical, yearning solo. Whereas for Naghdi's Manon, there was excitement, curiosity, pleasure, and love of a kind; but only in Act 3 does she understand real love, and feel real love, and by then it's too late. The kind of arc that anyone's life could take - the tragedy of realising too late that you've taken the wrong path, with disastrous and sometimes fatal consequences. In Acts 1 and 2 she and her brother are really exercising their power, including over Des Grieux; by Act 3, Lescaut is dead and she's lost everything. Bracewell was absolutely mesmerising; aghast at Manon's behaviour with Monsieur G.M., overflowing with love for her in the various pas de deux, desperate to put things right. But he's betrayed by Manon as surely as Giselle is betrayed by Albrecht. And in the last act here, it's Manon who is filled with regret and horror, and Des Grieux who supports her and loves her to the end. So in spite of the tragedy, there is still love at the end, which is the only possible redemption. Luca Acri was a marvellous Lescaut - ruthless and amoral. Anna Rose O'Sullivan danced superbly as his Mistress, but I do find that role quite unsatisfactory - no real character arc, and fairly repetitive choreography. And this time I found the drunk pas de deux, although brilliantly done, jarring in this context. Gary Avis was a loathsome Gaoler, bringing to mind Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. He didn't want Manon for herself but because he saw that she had a protector; he was asserting his power over not just her but also over Des Grieux. And in the end, the only way DG could fight back was by doing literally that - fighting back and killing him. The end of Act 3 was magnificent, from both Naghdi and Bracewell. Complete abandon, as if in a world of their own; except that we were privileged enough to be witnesses. Superb.
  4. Yes, this is the real point. Whatever they do or don't do about access tickets, the booking information/availability on the website should be clear and unambiguous for all bookers.
  5. Quite. No doubt access seats are offered not just out of the kindness of the ROH's heart but to fulfill funding requirements etc, which would surely be breached by releasing them so far ahead.
  6. ENB have tweeted this cast change, so it's definitely Frola.
  7. But if access scheme members can book online they must have to log in separately if they are able to see the seats that are available only to them; so surely the number of seats available could also be visible only to them.
  8. Perhaps; but if they're not available for online booking, surely it should be possible to remove them entirely from the online booking function? (At the moment they leave them in when citing the number of tickets left but then remove them when you get to the seat plan. Doesn't make sense.)
  9. Whatever the reason/s are, this is clearly not how it should work.
  10. To be honest, that doesn't make sense to me. If you're not registered as an 'access' person (whoever that might be), why does it show any tickets being available to you at any stage? The system should be consistent from one stage of booking to the next, and it clearly isn't.
  11. If you go to the thread 'ROH Spring 2024 Booking' in the News forum, the last few posts cover this same query/problem...
  12. I think MAB's meaning was that it could only apply when it is his production rather than a different one that is being danced.
  13. In that case they should not be included in the number of tickets left, because they're not actually available.
  14. Tweet from BRB about a Facebook event: Join @BRB and our alumna @DarceyOfficial for a livestream from the studio on 24 January at 19.00 She’ll be coaching company dancers including alumni Gabriel Anderson and Haoliang Feng in the iconic Rose Adage from The Sleeping Beauty.
  15. I don't know what he has said elsewhere, but in his autobiography he said that Cojocaru 'was a great Giselle when she first did it with me in 2001. We worked well together and she won rave reviews, but later when she went off onto the guest artist circuit she never recaptured the original impact of her early performances'. Though I have to say that her later performances had no less of an impact on me than her stunning 2001 début.
  16. The ROH has tweeted the sad news that Anthony Russell-Roberts has died: https://www.roh.org.uk/news/remembering-anthony-russell-roberts-cbe-1944-2024
  17. I'd missed reading this review. How bizarre! The reviewer has clearly completely misunderstood what's going on (and clearly hasn't read the programme, which you'd think a critic would do if only to get the background facts about the production correct). And it wouldn't really make sense anyway - if Albrecht wakes up and it was all a nightmare, Giselle was sleeping peacefully in her grave all along anyway. (And, of course, reducing the whole thing to a bad dream rather than a 'real' tragedy of loss, forgiveness, redemption, etc, would be awful!).
  18. In the programme, it says that Giselle's heart 'belongs to Loys, a young stranger who has recently occupied the cottage opposite'. However, Loys is actually Albrecht...' etc. So he's her new(ish) neighbour; whether he 'occupied' the cottage because he'd already met Giselle, or before meeting her, who knows.
  19. Yes, I do think that Hilarion was fundamentally well motivated; I just think that there is a range of possibilities for how he can be interpreted/performed. (And I'm sure that part of his anger at Giselle's death is directed at himself as well as at Albrecht.) And I think that his beard and clothing show him to be a real, honest person in contrast to Albrecht's smarter but fundamentally dishonest presentation.
  20. I suppose Hilarion does expose Albrecht in the most public and devastating way possible for Giselle - he could perhaps be considered to be motivated more by his own jealousy and anger than by his love for Giselle. Not that I'm defending the Wilis or anything!!
  21. Yes - my only fear is that I will take a rubbish photo of their big moment!
  22. Casting as advertised, except that Alison McWhinney replaces Angela Wood as Myrtha: https://www.ballet.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/14-Jan-2.30.pdf
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