JohnS

Isn’t this more a case of addressing a particular audience - a few words that play well with the home supporters, a bit like the football manager of an English team highlighting the Spanish star when playing in Madrid?

A scintillating evening, luxury casting, and I thought Emmanuel Plasson conjured some magical playing from the orchestra, with Kate Shipway the soloist in Month in the Country. Very much enjoyed Firebird with Yasmine Naghdi and Ed Watson, with Gary Avis almost stealing the show as Kostchei. Month is such a gem, beautifully performed, and Symphony in C just fizzes. Looking forward very much to Friday and chance to get a better perspective from the Balcony Stalls rather than front Stalls and hoping to get a return for next week. A fabulous way to bring the curtain down on this season. The cast sheet has a 10:30 finish but I think the house lights went up at 10:45.

Many thanks cackles - I hadn’t realised Francesca Hayward was dancing Vera. Fabulous. It would help enormously if there was more detail for the performers.

Looking forward to tonight and Friday - I keep checking for returns for 12 and 14 as I see Anna-Rose O’Sullivan is dancing Vera and there were some stunning rehearsal photos. Did she by any chance dance at the Rehearsal?

Agreed. I’m hoping to get some advice on how to book ‘packages’ for the Autumn ... which may of course depress box office income.

I don’t suppose there’s a video - not that we need it given such powers of description?

I’m afraid ‘data-led’ is as platitudinous as ‘evidenced based’. Who wouldn’t wish to claim that a plan is based on proper analysis of data or evidence? The Royal Opera House’s pricing policy is to make the most of price flexibility, setting prices for individual productions to maximise revenue. Hence there is no hard copy published price grid as it would require a separate grid for each production. Seats are moved from price category to price category depending on the production which has led to very high price increases for relatively cheaper seats. I assume the Royal Opera House realised that there was no reason to discount tickets for matinees as they were popular and audiences for matinees have seemingly been happy to pay the full price. I wonder if the Royal Opera House may at some point look at its various packages where significant discounts are available and there seems to be a great deal of flexibility in choosing dates/seats. I’ve never before considered a package but will do so for Autumn booking. But if no package were available I’d still most likely buy the tickets. I might possibly use the savings to go to more performances but I do think there’s a question about the need for such discounts and whether they are actually depressing revenue which is having to be made up elsewhere. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the pricing policy - it’s more the need for transparency in what is going on and honesty in public statements. I think it’s disingenuous of Alex Beard to talk about flexibility being ‘as much to do with lowering prices where it makes sense as nudging them up elsewhere’. A lot of people would suggest prices for some tickets have been significantly increased and not simply ‘nudged up’.

And I’m sure they’d be understandable, without recourse to acronyms! I struggle to understand the claimed achievements. It’s not just the acronyms CRM (Customer Relations Management) and 0KRs (Objectives and Key Results). But what meaning can be attached to a claim that she ‘Grew CRM results from 8% to 25% of total revenue, whilst halving the costs’? Incidentally the Baker Richards article included the statement: ‘Email marketing now contributes over 25% of ROH’s box office revenue, up from 16% two years ago when the changes began.’ So there’s a question about the 8% start point. But no evidence is provided whatsoever about the causality - what determines whether a ticket sale is a direct result of an email? Would those sales have taken place in any event? Whilst I can understand claims relating to increasing sales, I struggle with these delivering ‘a £2 million increase in profit’. The Royal Opera House financials tend to show a very modest surplus on general funds - £100,000 in 2018 and £200,000 in 2017. And unsurprisingly nothing on managing consultants where the Baker Richards ‘advertorial’ has caused massive reputational damage: in my view if she saw the draft she should have insisted on changes and if she didn’t see the draft she wasn’t managing her contractors.

A train journey home and chance to catch up on posts after a draining double R&J and collect my thoughts. The matinee was very much Naghdi/Ball, the first chance to see them since that fabulous debut in October 2015, my wife’s most treasured performance. Yesterday was very fine and I am looking forward immensely to the live relay with the director selecting what we are to see. Front row of the Orchestra Stalls has many attractions but with so much activity across the entire stage, it can be a little like watching a tennis match. You can of course choose what to focus on and the detail is tremendous. A couple of minor slips - Matthew Ball to me join Mercutio and Benvolio a beat too early when launching towards the front and I thought he was in danger of losing his dagger when confronting Paris in the tomb. I agree with some of the comments about Yasmine’s rather ‘polite’ stabbing which I thought fractionally late. But their whole journey together was wonderful to see at close quarters and it’s fabulous that their performance will be relayed. It seems slightly odd to me that the broadcast is a full 10 days after their first performance and there are no other R&J performances since last night. I’d like to think the reason for the gap is so that Yasmine isn’t having to cope with another deluge of bouquets although she is of course dancing Firebird etc. Whilst I was transported by Romeo and Juliet, I was less impressed with some of the supporting cast. I think we’ve had stronger Mercutios than Valentino Zucchetti and Tybalts than Gary Avis. And it underlined for me that what made the Hayward/Corrales 2nd performance so compelling was the astonishing strength of all the principals and how well matched they were. That need for consistency across the main principals also struck me in the evening’s performance. Romeo (David Hallberg), Mercutio (James Hay) and Benvolio (Calvin Richardson) seemed rather mismatched to me - I couldn’t get ‘the unlikely lads’ out of my mind. Yes some great dancing but not that camaraderie of some casts and not helped by height differences. Ryoichi Hirano’s Tybalt was menacing. This was a shame because last night we were treated to a truly visceral Juliet from Natalia Osipova, quite astonishing. Rather than simply go limp/play dead when forced to dance with Paris, she demonstrated utter revulsion at the prospect, with her body desperate to get away from his holds. Rob’s already referred to her manic dash from bedroom to Friar Laurence etc. But there was also tangible deliberation in how she decided upon what she must do and how often in Act 3 she turned to look to Romeo’s exit from her bedroom. Her stabbing was brutal and her death achingly beautiful in its resolution. Despite being in the Balcony Stalls, I felt as if I were in the tomb as the slow curtain dropped. It was very much Juliet’s performance last night and I couldn’t help thinking what might have had Romeo been more of a match. David Hallberg was fine but given such a Juliet, I’d have preferred a much more spirited, energised Romeo. I’d have loved to see Matthew Ball as Natalia Osipova’s Romeo ... but not on the same day as partnering Yasmine Naghdi. And many thanks to the fabulous friends, harlots, and mandolins who add so much to the enjoyment, and to Pavel Sorokin and the Orchestra.

Virgin internet on the train home is almost as slow as the Sunday service crawling to Milton Keynes so I can’t see what Jan has posted above. But many congratulations to Liverpool ... and not just because the thought of Spurs being European Champions would have been too much for an Arsenal supporter, particularly given Wednesday’s disappointments against Chelsea.

Absolutely - we are so very fortunate and I think in Anna-Rose O’Sullivan we have a third ‘must see’ younger dancer. Add the peerless Laura Morera and I’ll just have to find ways of increasing my Ballet budget.

Does this herald news of promotion(s) - (brackets because I’m not sure if matinees in Japan ‘demand’ Principals)?

Many thanks Lizbie I noticed that the new Annual Review hadn't included this statistic and I rather wonder if it was thought a more acceptable figure than the ones in the Annual Review which both suggest pretty significant ticket price increases for more modestly priced tickets. The 40% of tickets at £45 or less best sits alongside the previous year’s 38% of tickets at £40 or less, so perhaps in 2017-18 38% of tickets were at c£43 or less. The increase from £40 to c£43 is 7.5%, still more than double the inflation rate but much less than the implied inflation in the other comparisons. For ease of comparison it would be much better if the Royal Opera House published either %age of tickets below £30, £50 and £70 or the price threshold at which 30% and 50% of tickets are sold. Whatever option is measured, the Royal Opera House needs to make clear what the basis is ie whether this is an analysis of advertised ticket price for main stage performances available for public booking before any discounting and excluding schools matinees etc.

I see the long expected 2017-18 Annual Review is now published but without as yet any press notice. https://static.roh.org.uk/about/annual-review/pdfs/Annual-Report-2017-2018.pdf?_ga=2.126007757.1939063875.1558728519-1251461159.1552740691 The Chairman’s and Chief Executive’s reports are both dated 26 February 2019 - which rather begs a question why it has taken another 3 months for the report to be published. The Annual Review includes the following: “More than half the tickets at our Covent Garden home cost £65 or less, and more than 30% were £35 or less; 22,000 people attended low-priced enhanced performances for schools, families, students and community groups” The previous Review’s formulation was: “31% of tickets at £30 or less 38% of tickets at £40 or less 47% of tickets at £50 or less 20,900+ attended a subsidized performance with low-cost tickets for families and schools” Given the lack of precision in the 2017-18 report, it’s impossible to compare what has changed between the years. My suggestion would be that if we want a comparison with 2016-17’s ‘47% of tickets at £50 or less’, you’d need to be looking at ‘47% of tickets at c£60 or less’ in 2017-18 (as ‘more than half the tickets cost less than £65’). On that basis the threshold for the 47% of lower priced tickets has increased from £50 to c£60, a 20% increase, well in excess of inflation. But this is guess work and it’s frustrating that there isn’t a direct comparison. There is a more direct comparison between 2016-17’s ‘31% of tickets at £30 or less’ and the latest Review’s ‘more than 30% of tickets were £35 or less’. Here the threshold for the cheapest seats increases from £30 to £35, a 17% increase and significantly greater than inflation. I’ve always taken ‘our Covent Garden home’ to mean ‘main stage’ but it’s not explicit. I’m sure there are many other nuggets in the Annual Review but thought it might be worth adding a new thread.

Not at all. It was very good of you to start things off - I wouldn’t have got very far at all. But I was fortunate enough to see the Marcelino Sambe/Anna-Rose O’Sullivan debut performance which was very special indeed and I do hope we won’t have quite the same wait to see them again as we’re having to do for Matthew Ball/Yasmine Naghdi (1 June is now, at last, fast approaching).

And Romeo!

Many thanks Sim - I’d been very much hoping you were going to post your substantive thoughts and you have. I couldn’t make last night and will treasure their second performance with such a fabulous cast.

Agreed! Priority booking really helps for more expensive seats which can very quickly be booked up for some productions. 9:00 on booking dates whatever the priority I guess is a busy time with many Friends refreshing their screens as the minutes tick down. I’ve never bought a package, in part because some seats I particularly like are not included. I’m therefore unsure of the detail and don’t know if you end up selecting your actual seat or if you are allocated a seat within the area specified for your package.

Very pleased to see that JennyTaylor enjoyed last night’s performance - and that she has a 3rd ticket for Hayward/Corrales. There was certainly plenty of characterisation in Marianela Nuñez’s Juliet but for me it was coquettishness rather than endearment, more suited to Fille than Juliet with those pulled faces (when Romeo kisses her back) and I’m afraid to my mind underlined that we were not seeing my no doubt idealised young Juliet.

I think we’ve been completely spoiled by recent performances but tonight’s left me somewhat underwhelmed. There were some real highlights - Marcelino Sambe’s Mercutio, Ryoichi Hirano’s Tybalt, and Benjamin Ella’s Benvolio, with Joseph Sissons Mandolin and Anna-Rose O’Sullivan yet again exquisite as Juliet’s lead friend. But ‘Romeo and Juliet’ requires believable leads and I’m afraid I was not persuaded by either Marianela Nuñez or Jacobo Tissi. Juliet in Act 1 didn’t come across to me as a young girl about to fall in love, the teenager on the cusp of becoming a woman. When Juliet was introduced to Paris, the nurse simply took Juliet’s doll from behind her back - Juliet was not active in pushing the doll away from her, putting aside childish toys as she recognised the possibility of something very different. Other Juliet’s have been much more active in wanting to seize that moment. And Juliet did not leap into her nurse’s lap, choosing instead to sit by her nurse’s feet which rather emphasised that we were not looking at a young girl. I found Romeo unconvincing, perhaps because of limited rehearsal time, a debut in the role, and pressures of delivering a performance as a guest principal? At times he seemed out of step with Mercutio and Benvolio - those cross stage leaps in Act 2 for the three were poor. I thought some of the Act 1 pdd lifts were laboured. And given some technical uncertainty I found it difficult to see a credible Romeo. That said, Act 3 to my mind was much better and the final scene genuinely moving. I’m very sorry Reece Clarke was injured as it would have been good to see Marianela Nuñez dancing with her planned partner, having the benefit of full rehearsals. I do wonder about pulling in guest principals although there have been some great performances from guests. And I couldn’t help thinking that on stage we did have a Romeo and Juliet who have only had one public performance ... and, very selfishly, what might have been as I recognise there are many thousands of Marianela Nuñez fans.

Has Anna-Rose O’Sullivan danced Princess Stephanie? Lucky LA.

Many thanks Jan - I’d been meaning to look for the reviews but rather got side tracked by the new season/Alex Beard.

Thanks Lizbie - interesting to read of the research done for the MacMillan and hopefully we might see his Seven Deadly Sins on stage at some point (The Linbury?). I’m very pleased to have gone to the Wigmore Hall for András Schiff playing the Bach partitas as my alternative to Wilton’s changed programme - a fabulous recital and delighted to have heard him playing live.

Which is why it is much better to make the most of the excellent outreach work such as the recent schools matinee Romeo & Juliet with Anna-Rose O’Sullivan and Marci Sambe, perhaps a first ballet for many of the audience and hopefully a number will become regulars.

Thanks Dave - will be interesting to see what comes across in the cinema. But it does seem a bit contrived if audiences need to be on the lookout as to whether dancers are averting their eyes or have their eyes closed. I saw the Triple Bill from Balcony Stalls earlier and am looking forward to seeing it from much closer on Saturday - I was wanting to see the cinema/Saturday’s matinee before commenting as I’m sure a closer view would help.