Lizbie1

11 minutes ago, Ianlond said:

However, as Monica Mason mentions in the same insight, dancers have historically been rather silent & even seen as stupid so I absolutely see the worth of dancers being able to express their views more clearly &, perhaps, take more agency in promoting their own career. 

On the other hand, isn't their silence one of the main sources of their magic?

7 minutes ago, Ondine said:

 

Indeed. These days I suspect Margot Fonteyn's 'affairs' would have been splashed all over the gutter press and I think that would certainly have altered her public image!

 

Constant Lambert of course.  And a blue plaque for what I will politely call her  'love nest' 🤨

 

In 1952 she gave up the flat to her brother’s ex-wife Idell, who lived there until the 1990s. In turn, Idell lent the flat to Fonteyn for her meetings with the aviator Charles Hughesdon, with whom she had an affair for at least ten years from about 1964.   

 

 

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/margot-fonteyn/

 

 

Ondine - I find it interesting that you refer to the "gutter press" talking about her affairs in one paragraph and go on to inform us about one in the next.

34 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

😮😮 I thought it sold very well this season! Certainly the audience at the performance I was at loved it so much that the cast nearly couldn’t go home- there was so much applause. I was told Turandot normally performs well at the box office- like Peter Wright’s Nutcracker (same age, funnily enough, although Nutcracker has had some tweaks over the years, but essentially same designs and overall look of the ballet.) If they’re not going to perform Turandot ever again, they’ve just killed one of the few golden geese the RO had.

Well I've just seen that the RO have said it will be revived again - several reviews claim(ed) otherwise so who knows whether the RO said something confusing or they've cancelled a new production.

I'm not complaining though!

(Fingers crossed that the new Tosca staging floated in Opera magazine goes the same way.)

20 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Andrei Serban’s Turandot - a gem of a staging, lovely colours, and a nice traditional style- dates from 1984 so probably the oldest still being performed.

I believe it's just been retired.

2 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

 

Indeed. I did like the Traviata sets though, and Marriage of Figaro. But not much else!

I actually dislike that Traviata production (weird, cramped sets for most of it - maybe I just don't "get" Bob Crowley like everyone else seems to) and wish they'd replace it - the trouble is, there's no guarantee the replacement would be any better.

Intrigued by the "Casting TBC" for two of the Swan Lake dates.

3 minutes ago, capybara said:

 

It's all there when I click the links under the production info.

And for me.

5 minutes ago, FionaE said:

My main problem with the version at RB is that all 3 MacMillan ballets …Manon, Mayerling and R&J have costumes and sets that are overwhelmingly orangey brown. So dull and repetitive year after year.  

Absolutely in agreement here. R&J holds up very well IMO but Mayerling and (particularly) Manon much less so. Another of my minority opinions I suppose!

I agree with several posters, IF  I decide to go this time (and I'm not minded to at those prices) it will be the Kaneko/Muntagirov pairing that draws me.

2 minutes ago, Sim said:

 

I have seen him dance the role several times over the years, and he was always good.  I can't say what he would be like now.

He danced it at ROH, also with Nunez, in October 2019. I went because I thought that might be my last opportunity to see him in a full length ballet but I can't say I was bowled over.

Some very welcome debuts there!

I realise why they do it but I wish they wouldn't always lead with the top priced tickets - the average would be more honest and is in many cases bad enough.

13 minutes ago, bridiem said:

It does now correctly show Gary Avis. But I'm amazed that such errors go live at all - do they really edit the website directly, with no checking stage?

It is amazing - any substantial website should have a workflow set up requiring everything to be approved before publication, with overrides only for emergencies.

7 minutes ago, zxDaveM said:

When I was in IT support, Edge drew an intake of breath through gritted teeth. Chrome (the most popular outside the default operating system browser - Edge or Safari) was becoming 'lumpy' and slow to load anything, so it was Firefox we went for as an alternative. That is now itself becoming a bit lumpy, so had been trying 'Brave', but I don't like it much

I went from Firefox to Chrome to Edge as the first two became respectively more difficult to work with and bloated. When Edge first switched to being Chromium based I found it far preferable to Chrome itself (which by then had become a huge memory hog), but recent "improvements" to Edge have left me wondering where to go next.

11 minutes ago, Bluebird said:

Historically, opera prices have been considerably higher than ballet prices.  It looks like they intend to change this for the lower priced seats. I've just compared the Winter Season  opera prices for seats in the Amphitheatre  to the  ballet prices for seats in the Amphitheatre:

  

The top two prices are higher than for Manon. Except for Bohème, the third price and fourth prices are similar.

 

Apart from the five restricted view seats at the very back,  the lowest price  is higher for Manon than for all the operas! 

 

I've tried to put this into a table.  Hope it works!

(NB The price bands for the slips for opera were different to those for Manon so it was too complicated to include the slips prices in the table).

 

Manon

99           79           63           49           34

Cav/Pag

118        86           65           48           32

Bohème

132        97           78           49           25

Tosca

118        86           65           48           32

Elektra

108        79           64           49           24

I am more sympathetic than many here to price rises (they don't have a lot of choice IMO) but this is mad. Quite apart from the question of Manon's box office appeal - and IIRC the amphi sales in particular were slow last time - view is far more important in ballet than in opera and the pricing needs to acknowledge that. I wonder if they have not grasped this simple fact.

If you go to/want to go to quite a few exhibitions every year it's worth considering the National Art Pass: costs £75 (less for the first year if you sign up for direct debit) and gets you 50% off exhibitions at most of the majors* and free admission to some places that normally charge, such as the Courtauld.

*The Royal Academy is the main exception I can think of: usually only a measly couple of quid off and they're generally pretty expensive in the first place.

Very pleased for all the Nutcracker debutantes.

1 minute ago, Emeralds said:

I sympathise with members who had planned to book 7 Nov. The sales/box office team should have blocked off the date as “not available for general booking” from the outset. That way patrons can make plans for other dates.  It’s easier to release sections for sale later on if they don’t need all the seating than to back track later, like they’ve done here. Not very considerate and looks very amateurish. 

But this assumes that they had prior notice. My guess is that they didn't.

Only one ticket this booking period, and that's for opera (Forza). That is a lot fewer than previously. I've also let my Friends membership lapse, to be resumed later in the season.

The change is mostly down to this season's largely uninspiring programming and casting, but I'd probably have booked a Don Q or two if prices were lower. I can't see myself booking for Manon either at those prices (I'm not crazy about it anyway), so there might be no RB for me until the MacMillan triple in March.

Because decent experiences often go unrecorded: I only wanted one ticket. I queued for 10 minutes (after a long pause) and everything went fine.

37 minutes ago, JohnS said:

Elektra slip prices are £49, £24 and £15 -  I’m afraid autocorrect defeated me earlier.

I was puzzling over the switch to English spelling!

14 minutes ago, JohnS said:

Top price Slips for other Winter productions are: Electra & Boheme £49; Cav & Pag & Tosca £32; Hansel & Gretel £23. All pretty arbitrary as the operas in price order are: Cav & Pag, Boheme & Tosca £245; Electra £200; Hansel & Gretel £155.

Thar Electra Slips price is very strange. Do you have the other Slips prices for Electra? I usually sit there so am interested in whether the high price carries through to the cheaper Slips tickets.

I've gone for the classics programme because my view is that if you can only choose one show for a visiting company you haven't seen before, you should go with what they're best known for - unless there's a piece that you really want to see.

6 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

I received the Winter Mag a few days ago....Manon is priced at:

Stalls £140/120/99

SC far Sides  £49/34/14/8

Stalls Circle  £140/120/99/79/63/49/34/14

Grand Tier  £140

Balcony  £120/99/79/49/14

Slips  £14/8

Amphi  £99/79/63/49/34/14/8

This feels expensive for Manon, which sometimes sells rather slowly. Assuming the £34 Amphi price applies to the front sides, that's a very steep increase on the £18 I paid in October 2019 during its last run.

6 minutes ago, Ianlond said:

Hi all, I wonder if anyone can help. I’m really keen to go to Stuttgart for the ‘Remember Me’ double bill in November but have a few questions, having never booked for Stuttgart before. 
Is the ticket system ballot, where you put in a bid before sales open? 
Is there any point trying to get tickets for Saturday 4th (realistically the only date I can make it for) as I’m sure it will be popular? 
How easy is it to set up a SEPA direct debit as instructed? 
Thank you in advance for any help! Ian 

To the best of my understanding, having been through this this season:

1. Tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis (i.e. in order of the date/time when your request was submitted) on the appointed day of sales opening, so it's important to get your request in asap.
2. Angela will probably have the best feel for availability of that date, but I would definitely give it a try.
3. I can't speak for the process this season, but if it hasn't changed, you need to specify that you're from outside the EU on the form. When your seat is (hopefully!) allocated, they'll email giving you 3 days to pay for the tickets. Do monitor your inbox and spam folder carefully, as I nearly missed one of the emails as it had been marked as spam - though not the other! I found payment very straightforward, just follow the link and enter card details.

Does this help?