Lizbie1

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.

1 minute ago, Beaker said:

 I see it’s the middle ballet in the Macmillan triple again! 

I sometimes wonder whether an unspoken reason why ADs do this is to discourage people from arriving late or leaving early to skip it.

5 minutes ago, tiltwithlips said:

First, a caveat - I slipped out at the second interval, missing Love Letter (on shuffle), due to a combination of a long day in the office and it being by far the piece on the programme that interested me least on paper. If I'd been less tired, I'd definitely have given it a chance - but I don't hugely regret not doing so and getting home earlier!

Oh how this resonates - I need to do it more often!

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!

@Dawnstar have I ever mentioned how much I appreciate your logical approach? It so often makes me think about things in a new way.

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.

@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.

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.

8 minutes ago, LinMM said:

I can see why those who did not see him earlier at ENB may not rate him but I’m really hoping he can come into his own in the next season. 

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.

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.

1 minute ago, Dawnstar said:

 

A pity for Hirano that his 2nd ever performance of a role could well be his last. It's a shame that he didn't get at least a couple of goes at it. At least Lamb has had several runs of Manon, although 14 performances (if my maths is correct) over 13 years shows how few times dancers ever get to do roles. (Having just looked up the ROH performance database to see how may times she's danced Manon, I'm interested to see she previously danced the Mistress, which I hadn't been aware of.)

That database is full of holes, or at least it was the last time I checked. It could be missing a few.

1 hour ago, alison said:

 

There's no reason simply to "replace" a principal because another is leaving, particularly if nobody has yet reached the required standard.  I think we've discussed this up-thread.

But it needn't be a promotion? I know the idea gets some resistance here, but maybe the upper ranks of the RB men could do with some fresh blood. I don't have anyone in mind, but maybe others do.

(I used to think that if the RB could acquire one dancer from outside, Shklyarov would be my choice, but I don't see that happening now!)

6 minutes ago, MJW said:

Went a bit mad and booked seven performances and have three in three days 

Try 7 in 4 days!

Got everything I wanted this morning - a straight run of seven Ashtons. All done by about 09.07; email confirmation through at 09.12.

Good luck everyone else.

3 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

 

Are those people likely to have access to Friends booking though? I would have thought that anyone who went often enough to make having Friends membership worthwhile is highly likely to have seen more than enough ballet to have cast preferences.

Remember, a lot of Friends' main interest is opera. (I don't know how relevant this is to the broader argument.)

32 minutes ago, BeauxArts said:

I think it is sad and remiss  that the RB are not dancing any Ratmansky and/or have not (apparently) sought to commission a piece from him in recent years. 

Yes - and tieing in with another thread, I'd like to see him create something on Muntagirov.

9 minutes ago, capybara said:

I don’t get your logic!

So people who have been lucky enough to get Insight tickets in the past are further rewarded with priority booking for this one? Sorry, but that’s rubbish surely?

 

I think SheilaC might have been referring to the FAF Masterclasses.

@TheGrandSophy - welcome, thank you and great name - one of my teenage favourites!*

*Added thought: you've made me want to read it again now.

For me it was that it was a Sunday night at quite short notice and was announced while I was swamped with work - no real time to look into making arrangements. I'm also quite nervous about timings for galas as they can be very unpredictable and often overrun quite badly - not good if you have to work the next morning and your journey home, point to point, is two and a half hours minimum if you're very lucky with the train timetable; more like four hours if not. I expect plenty of others were in a similar boat.

This is not intended as a criticism - Putrov did very well to bring this one off and it seems unlikely he delayed announcing it any further than he could.

1 minute ago, OnePigeon said:

I’m so jealous of your NY visit and trip to Stratford.  Matthew Baynton is a favourite in our household and I really wanted to take my son to see his Bottom, so to speak 😆.  Was it a good production?  I’m hoping for a London transfer, but know they don’t have any plans to transfer at the moment.

It was good enough! - I've seen much worse RSC productions, especially recently. The Pyramus and Thisbe scene was very well done so sent everyone out smiling. Matthew Bayntun was really very funny but I'm ashamed to say I had no idea who he was before this!

26 minutes ago, Mary said:

Jealous!

 

How especially nice to see both Dreams this year as well.

 

Yes - and saw the play last weekend (at Stratford) as well.

Thank you @DrewCo for the information about Pictures at an Exhibition. Sold!

I was due to visit New York last year but had to postpone, so am doubly looking forward to it. I'll also be seeing Midsummer Night's Dream twice - also for the first time, would you believe? Good things come to those who wait!

Thank you both - truly helpful. Jeanette's post reminds me that the Tanowitz will be on at SW so even if I end up liking it I'll have already seen it - and jazz isn't my thing so Interplay may well not be either. It looks like I'll be booking the Contemporary Choreography I programme.

(Fingers crossed there's an opportunity to see Year of the Rabbit closer to home in the coming years, or that it coincides with another hop across the pond.)

I wonder if one of the reasons for the delay is that they might not have fully thought through the casting implications of programming. There are several principals who I might normally "expect" to see in Rhapsody and the Dream (Hayward might also otherwise be considered a sure thing for Hamlet and Ophelia), but it could be a tall order for them to appear in both on the same day, or on consecutive days. They're only one-acters, but look like hard work to me!

@Bruce Wall - since this thread has expanded in scope, can I pick your brains? I'll be in New York in May and can likely only see either one or the other of the Classic NYCB II or Contemporary Choreography I bills. I've seen none of the works before.

The programmes are, respectively: Robbins' Interplay and Other dances, Tanowitz's Gustave le Gray and Peck's Year of the Rabbit; and Ratmansky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Gianna Reisen's Play Time, Ulysses Dove's Red Angels and Robbins' Glass Pieces.

As a rule I like Robbins and Ratmansky very well. I like Peck too but understand he's a bit hit and miss, and was one of the few here who rather liked Tanowitz's main stage piece for the RB - whose name escapes me. The other two choreographers are unknown to me.

(I'd welcome views from others familiar with the repertory too!)