Lizbie1

1 hour ago, FionaM said:

Munich have an audition height for men of 1.8m.  Maybe it’s guidance only because clearly Antonio Casalinho and Shale Wagman don’t match that.  

I've absolutely no idea how all this works, but could it be that such height restrictions/guidance is only for auditions open to all comers? If they're simply short of a few men for general duties it would make sense to put a lower limit on height for such an audition call, whereas if they're specifically in the market for a principal or future principal they would probably follow quite a different process.

@JohnS - it does, thank you!

On 18/02/2024 at 23:03, JohnS said:

I don’t think there’s a thread as yet but I received the details the other day and I see the seat map has been published. And booking for seats other than stalls/grand tier is part of Summer booking ie starting from 20th February. Given the very high prices for some seats, I was pleasantly surprised that standing tickets are £25 and some restricted view seats are cheaper than Swan Lake (for example Stalls Circle bench seats). I’ll be interested to see what seats are available next week.

Did you have any luck?

I've checked the website and can't see a seat map: is there a link?

My choice of date for the MacMillan triple was fixed long ago; I could only see one performance so casting was effectively immaterial, though of interest. I'm able to see more Ashton performances and am so more "invested" in the casting; it is frustrating not to know at least how many casts are being proposed for each work.

Despite that I think we should acknowledge that we have been very lucky with how far in advance the RB has habitually announced casting, and that if casting isn't ready - it's not ready! If they're withholding it it's for good reason.

However! This makes two mixed bills in a row where casting hasn't been announced in time for Friends booking opening, and IIRC something similar happened with Dante in the Autumn. It's beginning to look like a trend and I wonder what's driving it. Have early casting announcements been causing problems? If so I would quite like them to be honest about it - I don't need or want to know specifics, just a broad explanation and whether this is something we will see continue.

52 minutes ago, FionaM said:

oh!  So it’s worse than I thought.
 

Tamara  is either a poor people manager, or doesn’t want anyone else getting the limelight.  Possibly both.  
 

Sad to see when she has so many other great skills.  

I agree it doesn't look good but we only have one side of this.

38 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

The possibility that Tan would have declined to be in SOTE would have been highly unlikely given that a) it would be a new role and Tan doesn't have many MacMillan roles in her extensive repertoire

I don't see how this makes it unlikely that she had declined SOTE, quite the contrary.

I can't answer for anyone else but the reason I'm not engaging in this discussion is that I feel like the subject has already been done to death across numerous threads.

It's behind a paywall but this articulates well how I - and others I've spoken to IRL - feel about the Overground rebranding.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/done-with-mayor-performative-politics-sadiq-khan-l7pd2f0sk

Well I'm very impressed that ENB are getting another new work out of Forsythe. IMO no choreographer working in ballet today gives such a sense of the joy of dance.

I'd rather have Playlist than any new commission the RB have staged of late.

13 minutes ago, alison said:

Well, here's something I can moan about - talk about making the London Underground map more complicated than it already is!  Personally, I'm perfectly happy seeing all the Overground lines in orange, because then I know that they're Overground lines, and (roughly) where they go.  Otherwise, they'll just be individual lines with no obvious connection with each other.

 

"We're naming the London Overground lines to make the network easier to navigate and reflect the Capital's diverse history. We aim to make the changes by the end of 2024. 

Each of the 6 routes that make up the London Overground will be given a new name and its own colour. Giving each of the 6 London Overground routes an individual line colour lets us improve the way our customers experience our network. It also gives each line their own name and identity.

• Euston to Watford Junction line – will be called the Lioness line – and will be yellow 
• Stratford to Richmond/Clapham Junction line - will be called the Mildmay line – and will be blue 
• Highbury & Islington to New Cross/Crystal Palace/West Croydon/Clapham Junction line – will be called the Windrush line - and will be red
• Liverpool Street to Cheshunt/Enfield Town/Chingford line – will be called the Weaver line – and will be maroon
• Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside line – will be called the Suffragette line – and will be green
• Romford to Upminster line – will be called the Liberty line – and will be grey"

There is nothing about this that I like.

7 hours ago, Scheherezade said:

West End stage rather than Royal Ballet.  

This is how I feel about Wheeldon's later work for the RB in general.

Wasn't there an earlier explanation from Sarasota about this?

8 hours ago, LinMM said:

Thanks for those great reviews Nogoat! I’d like to see this. 

It’s just a thought and probably impractical in any sort of scheduling terms but I wonder if a ballet more suited to smaller venues could work at Almeida Theatre in Islington? 
I don’t know the theatre mentioned in Bath and whether it’s smaller even or bigger than Almeida but would make a change from Linbury. 

It's really tiny, definitely smaller than the Almeida.

This link should take you to a booking page for another production so you can see for yourself.

https://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/book-online/?performance=322006

Edit: I've just counted: 126 seats total.

5 minutes ago, Suffolkgal said:

Probably! It’s the sort of thing I worry about with AI!

Actually I find it reassuring that AI, in what is probably its most straightforward and profitable application (targeted advertising), is so bad at figuring me out!

12 hours ago, BeauxArts said:

They have! 

I can see "VARRI CAPRICCI" (though, true to Muphry's law I had a typo in my post!).

10 minutes ago, Peanut68 said:

Can people really just wander through the Crush Room?

I do so frequently because access to and egress from the right hand side of the upper tiers is so inadequate and slow. This might be why they don't try to block it off - presumably it's in the calculations for how many people can be evacuated.

3 hours ago, jm365 said:

I think sometimes critics accused Bejart of just using the beauty of his dancers' bodies and that his choreography was not that interesting

That is a very good way of expressing how I feel about certain contemporary choreographers (I don't know enough Béjart to form an opinion about him).

6 minutes ago, Tango Dancer said:

 

Just to say I usually sit towards the back of the circle because I am parsimonious by nature and don't like spending a lot of money on tickets when I have to travel.  I've never had a problem with the view.  The rake is ok and while you can't see the faces as well as you can further forward, it's never been a bad view.  

I'm of a similar mind and agree with this, and that the view is quite distant, so that might not suit everyone.

One gripe: I haven't looked at Hippodrome prices recently but it was always my experience that they start relatively high for ballet and opera (upper end of the £20s), compared to other theatres where you could see the same show.

2 hours ago, PeterS said:

I’ve been reflecting on this.

As part of a narrative story I think that it is acceptable to have characters behaving towards other characters in ways that wouldn’t be acceptable in real life. Because behaviour is considered unacceptable in real life doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. The best way to perpetuate a behaviour is to deny it happens. As such, by highlighting such behaviour the Arts play an important role in bringing it into the spotlight for debate and discussion. 
Fairy stories and fables contain important morals, messages and examples of how to and how not to behave for children and adults of all ages. This is one reason why they endure down the generations.
If one were to remove all the unpleasant and unacceptable themes in Cinderella one would be left with very little. There is domestic slavery (Cinderella is prisoner in her own home)

bullying (the step sisters bully Cinderella, their stepfather and the tradespeople),  coercive control and domestic abuse, (stepsisters and, where there is a stepmother her too), (Cinderella is not allowed her freedom nor freedom of choice) and attempted fraud/deception (stepmother and & stepsisters pretend to be the rightful owner of the glass slipper) to give a but a few examples 

Surely far better to stage a ballet which brings to life the ‘elephants in the room’ and promotes healthy discussion perhaps thereby changing peoples’ behaviour for the better than to pretend these things don’t exist. 
After all, the stepsisters (and stepmother) do not profit from their bad and antisocial behaviours. In Cinderella, good triumphs over bad. If only this were the case in real life.
 

 

I don't know what the answer is in this case, but the equation of fatness or indeed ugliness with wickedness* is something that begins to feel dated and that we should be leaving in the past. As Bintley is still active, it might be something he'd like to re-think in this revival.

*Somewhat off-topic, but IMO political cartoons - and hands up, I seldom find them funny anyway - are the worst offenders for this and it is most striking in their treatment of women politicians of all persuasions.

1 minute ago, Lizbie1 said:

The ROH website now has some details up:

 

https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/the-sarasota-ballet-2024-details

(It is somewhat depressing that they can't spell Varii Capricii right.)

The ROH website now has some details up:

https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/the-sarasota-ballet-2024-details

1 minute ago, Jen2307 said:

Does anyone know why Kenneth Macmillan's ballets weren't mentioned on The Magic of Dance?

 I was wondering the same, and about Cranko too. There was a surprising amount of Roland Petit though!

20 hours ago, Tattin said:

I have never seen Burgmuller's name added to that pf Adam, as it obviously should be. Was he Adam's assistant? Did he compose for any other ballets? I'll look him up. 

I remember playing his piano studies when I was a child - probably all he's really known for now.

50 minutes ago, Geoff said:

Don’t remember that but do remember Katie Mitchell, at an Insight for the Lucia (as above) swinging her legs and saying much the same, only even more directly.

To be fair to Katie Mitchell, I've found her productions to be at least well thought through and coherent, unlike Kasper Holten's.

I've only seen it once - with Oropesa, who was indeed sensational - and I thought it made sense as a concept. It might have helped that I could hardly see it (I was Lower Slips extreme side and as usual KM didn't concern herself with audience sightlines). Having said that the bathroom was giving me interior decoration ideas so I must have been able to see something!

I believe some of the staging was toned down from the first run, when IIRC Damrau got mixed reviews (my view of her in general is that she's competent but it's not a beautiful noise, unlike Oropesa - so I'm not sure Lucia as good a fit as all that for her). I wouldn't read anything into Oropesa not returning as she's in great demand everywhere and aggressively building her repertoire so doesn't seem to be repeating roles much anywhere.

If you're seeing Nadine Sierra it should be worth it for her alone, or so I'm led to believe. I don't know anything about Liv Redpath.