Lizbie1

I see the Royal Ballet have posted some prime excerpts from this year's live relay on YouTube. What a nice Christmas present!

Oh no! Do we know where she's going? (Sorry if I've missed some discussion about this.)

Today felt like such a special performance: the last Saturday matinee before Christmas, so many children (and so well behaved!), and such a great cast. My niece danced her way out of the building - it was almost a shock to get outside and find it wasn't snowing!

A few more details about booking dates and performance times have appeared on the Hochhauser website: https://www.victorhochhauser.co.uk/page/3/HOW-TO-BOOK.php

What really makes him, for me, is that even in large ensemble numbers he exudes enjoyment - there’s nowhere he’d rather be.

Oh, and I think I could watch Joseph Sissens' entrechats all day!

Gorgeous Nutcracker this afternoon - Nunez and Muntagirov magical; O'Sullivan utterly charming; Avis surely the most moving of Drosselmeyers; but - my goodness, how wonderful is Sambe these days? I haven't seen a lot of him in the last year or two: we always knew his leaps and turns were really something, but everything else seems to have caught up: partnering, line, acting and the most generous and happy stage presence. So great to see him really flourishing.

Another great thing about this programme is how many opportunities it's given to all ranks of dancers - not just because of the number of featured roles and small ensembles, but also their variety. Something for everyone!

There but for the grace of God...!

I thought it was borderline, though 2018-style political correctness actually makes it *easier* to interpret her being passed between different men as a "sexual choice" than 30 years ago.

Blue Girls: Gasparini, Harrod White Couple: Turk, Braendsrod Red Girls: Calvert, Storm-Jensen Andrei: Teo Dubreuil Natasha: Pajdak Kulygin: Kish Tusenbach: Dyer Solyony: Mock Chebutykin: Avis Anfisa: Turk Maid: Bradbury

I don't think it's a "2018" idea that women of limited means were and are often compelled into granting sexual favours/prostitution. If MacMillan wasn't aware of that... well, he should have been! I too am by preference shallow in my ballet viewing, but we hear a lot about MacMillan's realism and psychological depth. He can't have it both ways!

I think that potentially opens a whole new can of worms about how much freedom of choice the maid really has!

I didn't want to put this with my other post, but what's with the light-skirted maid in Winter Dreams? If MacMillan is trying to inject some local colour into proceedings does he have no better ideas than to insert women of easy virtue? We can't even blame this one on the usual excuse of "finding something for the corps to do".

I went to both performances yesterday. I'll start off by saying that I was expecting to enjoy Les Patineurs and The Concert a lot more than Winter Dreams: my "MacMillan algorithm" can be expressed simply as "it's all downhill after Manon". However, that prediction was exactly overturned in the matinee. Isabella Gaspirini's fabulous fouettes (better from my point of view than Hinkis' in the evening and absolutely bang on the beat) aside, I found it pleasant enough, but it didn't "come off" for me. The Concert, similarly, was...fine. But Winter Dreams, which I remembered so dimly that I might as well have been seeing it for the first time, was wonderful. Onto the evening, and normal service was resumed. Les Patineurs and The Concert sparkled; Winter Dreams was a drag. So either it was me, or the casts made the difference, or Les Patineurs and The Concert bear repeated viewings and Winter Dreams doesn't, or (probably) some combination thereof. If it's the casting I think the two main differences for me were in having wonderful Laura Morera as Masha and, the real revelation, Akane Takada as Irina. Naghdi was of course very good in the evening, but Takada was dazzling: together with her technical excellence, she really does convey emotion with her whole body - I couldn't take my eyes off of her beautiful expressive arms. I'd never quite got it with Takada before, but I'm now a fully paid up member of the fan club.

I should add that nearly everyone who browses the internet will have taken part in this kind of testing - they just don't normally tell you about it.

Jealous!

But that's what happens on the old What's On page, isn't it? Except you can't filter that!

Because they know that they are too close to the project and not typical users - one of the reasons things have gone badly so far IMO is that they *didn't* bother with this kind of thing. A real, in-the-wild, genuine cross-section of people who'll be using the website is a near impossible thing to recruit for pre-go-live testing, and this is by far the best way to test for genuine reactions. I and others here have been justifiably critical of the way the new website has been implemented so far, but there are strong signs that they've taken this on board and are trying hard to get a grip. I don't think it's helpful to criticise them for this.

Sorry, A/B variant testing (I’m rusty at this ).

I’ll make the assumption that this has already undergone the usual testing; if I’m right, this is something called alpha/beta testing, which is actually a good thing and designed to help them learn whether a new feature or design is better than what it’s replacing.

Any idea when we’re likely to hear about David Bintley’s successor?

Sarasota Ballet have programmed it with Enigma Variations (and the Diamonds act from Jewels). I'd be very happy indeed with that - and it seems to have been well received over there, going by the reviews in the links this week.

But, as Dawnstar says, when they do this it's always been with the same cast as for the "main" performance itself. Like her, I can't remember a time when other casts' performances have also been marked as being filmed. (Sad of us to notice, I guess!)

Sorry if this ground has already been covered, but I’m taking my 9yo half-Spanish niece to Saturday’s Nutcracker matinee and am thinking she might like to go to the stage door after and perhaps beg an autograph off of Marianela Nuñez in particular. Does anyone know how busy it’s likely to be for a Nutcracker matinee with a starry cast, or how long the wait for them to appear normally is? As you can probably tell I don’t do this often!