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Lizbie1

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  1. I've left a gala at the interval before, and a couple of other performances, not many. If it looks like it's going to overrun significantly - as I understand last night did - train anxiety kicks in; sometimes also you might not really be feeling it or you've had a long day, or tomorrow is a working day, etc. Of course I'm not paying anything like stalls prices, but if you're not enjoying something should that really make a difference? You're simply paying more to be unhappy!
  2. I was at Magic Flute on Saturday: the hydraulics had failed on the platform which the production uses heavily. The singers managed well and I didn't really mind. What did strike me however was that the on-stage announcement was made by someone who I believe isn't a member of the senior management team. Where were they?
  3. This is very much a personal opinion but by and large I find Puccini quite a "cold" composer - I can often sense him trying to pull my strings. Tosca and Turandot are the best of his IMO: Tosca because it's so well plotted and because the heroine is never presented as an innocent; Turandot because it's just so impressive - the Act 1 finale is an tour de force - and because we aren't expected to shed too many tears over Liu, the obligatory "victim": the plot moves on pretty swiftly. I must say though that I'm sick to death of Nessun dorma!
  4. I second all of this, especially the bit about never really getting on with Boheme. And Pinkerton is plainly an awful person - something which seems to have escaped those who attack it for its perceived imperialism.
  5. Some thoughts on this afternoon from the train home: Rotunda was a dud IMO, a waste of everyone's time. Boring music, boring choreography, whowever well performed. (I was also probably more antagonised than I should have been by the NYCB habit of wearing tights over leotards for practice. I know there's supposed to be some practical justification for it - though other companies seem to manage not to do it or at least wear shorts over them - but I can't help thinking of it as a "cool kids" thing that spread.) I didn't much enjoy Duo Concertant either, shocking though this may be!* I imagine Balanchine was playing with the duo thing and possibly poking fun at the format, but the long periods when the dancers just watch the musicians were...odd. Maybe the dancers need to practice their staring! I'm not a Stravinsky fan so that didn't help. I liked the Tanowitz! I thought the costumes were jolly, though I acknowledge the points made about their practicality. The choreography was at least distinctive, which is more than I can say of Rotunda. That's two out of two Tanowitz pieces I liked but most of the forum didn't, I don't know what that says about me. I can't remember anything about the music. Best of all for me was the Kyle Abraham. I thought there was some fine choreography and great dancing. Can someone tell me if the first solo after Taylor Stanley's was danced by Olivia Bell? I thought she was super. I started out hating the costumes but they'd won me over by the end - miles better than the practice clothes or minimum effort greige underwear so often seen. Some of them reminded me of the middle section of Woolf Works. As for the music - for the first half it was uncomfortably loud (can someone remind the SW sound team that it's a theatre not a club?) but not otherwise annoying IMO; unfortunately when it went a bit quieter this meant that we had more of James Blake's whiney singing. Sorry, not my most fluent bit of writing, but I'm tapping this out on my phone before I forget it all. *Edited to add: of course there were some great moments in it - it's Balanchine! But it didn't work as a whole for me.
  6. I sometimes wonder whether an unspoken reason why ADs do this is to discourage people from arriving late or leaving early to skip it.
  7. If I've missed this elsewhere, please merge this. I just fished around for news of the RBS shows and was very pleased with what I saw: https://www.royalballetschool.org.uk/summer-performances/ Lots to look forward to!
  8. @Dawnstar have I ever mentioned how much I appreciate your logical approach? It so often makes me think about things in a new way.
  9. Can someone please explain to me why we are worrying so much about marketing for this programme? The amount of attention we're giving it doesn't seem to tally with the number of tickets left to sell. I'm not a huge fan of their work - though I think we've all seen improvements since the disastrous digital-only strategy of a few years back - but the ROH marketing department has limited capacity and is probably diverting its resources elsewhere.
  10. @Angela, when might we expect the season announcements to start coming in? I know some announce quite late but I think I'm used to seeing others come through in February and March.
  11. I don't think it's been ROH marketing's finest hour (come to think of it, what was their finest hour?) but looking at the seat maps I can't see that sales to date are disastrous.
  12. I was likewise very impressed with him at ENB but for whatever reason (maybe it's just me!) his early RB appearances didn't match up to his ENB form IMO. I also have a bit of a thing about heavy landings and some of his were really clattering. I don't know if this is something that can be improved but they rather spoil the effect for me.
  13. My bugbear is when the travelling arabesques in the female variation are cut very short - Zakharova is probably the worst offender from that list, she barely bothers with them. I don't really understand why some do this, there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation with the technical ability of the dancer.
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