Lizbie1

Apparently the press embargo will be lifted at 11am - meanwhile it’s all there on their own website.

Stevie, I agree in some respects with what you are saying, but on this subject there are two things that bother me about the ROH’s current course: firstly that, apart from the already existing live screenings, no consideration has seemingly been made to those of us who travel from beyond London and the Home Counties (indeed, matinees, which used to be discounted, are no longer so); and secondly that surely it’s possible to address potential new audiences without alienating the existing one.

I see that the Chaillot programme features the Royal Ballet performing Merce Cunningham's Cross Currents - presumably we'll see it in London as well.

It’s been announced for Glyndebourne 2020, directed by Barrie Kosky: https://www.glyndebourne.com/festival/glyndebournes-2020-programme-announced/

Oh! A stray thought I had watching Flight Pattern was that I’d like to see Crystal Pite choreograph or even one day direct an opera - she’d use the chorus beautifully.

I think the back turned/not looking in the eyes thing would matter a lot less if the commenters felt the choreography and story telling were stronger. That’s my position, anyway.

I find the “real people” line offensive as well as ludicrous. Are they saying that there is a kind of audience member who doesn’t make the cut in that respect?

Very briefly: Golden Hour - loved the new costumes but, the men’s duet apart - with Nicol Edmonds looking very good - I was less impressed with the ballet than last time around. I think maybe that I’m just never going to be a Wheeldon fan. Medusa: I really liked the only Cherkouai I’d previously seen (the Nutcracker pdd) so approached this with an open mind but thought it was a bit of a dud - low key and boring considering the dramatic potential of the story. It didn’t help that the Medusa headdress was IMO more comic than scary. The women’s costumes were lovely but I hated the diaphanous jumpsuits the men were saddled with. Great singing from Ailish Tynan and Tim Mead though! Flight Pattern: after being disappointed by the first two pieces I was definitely in the wrong frame of mind for this, so had to settle for admiring it rather than being moved by it. I was most impressed with the handling of the corps - interesting, unusual and highly musical.

I’m not sure it’s fair to ENB to see them as some kind of training company for the RB.

It’s possible that it’s BRB reviving it, I suppose. And “next year” could of course mean 20/21.

Some sketches and information about the new Golden Hour costumes: https://www.tatler.com/article/jasper-conran-designs-golden-costumes-for-royal-ballet

From an interview with Jasper Conran in Tatler about his Golden Hour costumes (https://www.tatler.com/article/jasper-conran-designs-golden-costumes-for-royal-ballet) ”It’s Conran’s first time working with Christopher Wheeldon – after this production, the life cycle of the costumes will hopefully go on. After all, Conran reveals, ‘there’s a piece that I did for the royal ballet 25 years ago that is returning next year.’ Let's hope that the same applies for these.” Could that be Tombeaux? Does anything else fit?

Sorry, I don’t know how better to describe it, but I’ve observed it on a number of occasions. (I don’t normally fixate on dancers’ jaws either, but once you notice a mannerism it’s hard to stop picking up on it.) If you haven’t noticed it, that’s good: there’s no point in others getting distracted by it too, so I won’t be seeking out clips as evidence!

One thing I’d recommend is trying to learn what you can of the Cyrillic alphabet before you go so that you can read street signs and so on. (Don’t count on anything being in the Roman alphabet, let alone English.) As for Russian itself: it’s a pretty challenging language so it’s probably best just to learn a few very simple phrases - please, thank you, maybe a few numbers and so on. (One word I found useful in many situations in my first days was “mozhno” - “may I?” / “can I have?” / etc - pronounced with a neutral vowel sound at the end and not an O.)

I agree it’s a terrific opera - and the final scene is so simple in conception but brilliant in execution. I was pretty much obsessed with it for years before I actually got to see it, after I first heard the Lyon Opera/Kent Nagano recording by chance on a sampler CD. I still make opera novices listen to it sometimes!

Not just you!

Sounds like one of those cases where there’s no right answer. I’m probably more willing than most to intervene when someone near me is misbehaving, but when there’s nothing I can do about it - and this would have been such an occasion - I’ve become quite good at ignoring even quite large disturbances. I’ve said it before here, but two incidents occurring quite close together helped me to this state: the first when I, very wrongly, found myself getting annoyed about paramedics dealing with an incident within the auditorium for the best part of an act; the other was when I - politely! - mentioned a loudly ticking watch during a piano recital and it turned out that its owner had an artificial limb, which caused the extra resonance. (She said no-one had ever noticed it before - I choose to take that as a compliment to my hearing rather than a subtle dig at my rudeness!) I also try to bear in mind that reverent silence during a performance is a relatively recent phenomenon.

I’ve certainly seen at least one (definitely adult) regular using them.

Since acoustics have been brought into the discussion... I know it's a cliche, but for opera I've never heard better than in the upper slips front row (and I've been lucky enough to have sat in the centre stalls on occasion). It's no good for vertigo sufferers or people who value a comfortable seat, though, and the view of the stage varies from partially restricted to bad, depending on the production and other audience members. You can get something a bit more comfortable in the lower slips for the same price - and if it's a long evening I often go for this - but you do lose a bit on quality of sound: too close to the action I suppose.

I don’t want to be cynical but that looks like a very carefully worded statement to me. My guess is that the ROH, rather than Worldpay, were struggling with the necessary security compliance. (I can’t find anything to suggest that Worldpay has made any such major changes.) On a positive note, however, at least they have taken measures to prevent a potential problem.

If it’s any mitigation on the one such event I attended I earwigged on Kevin O’Hare (sitting behind me) saying how much it annoyed him when that happened - I think he tended towards RuthE’s theory.

And that’s not going into the anxious arrival at 6am because the *very* slow-moving queue had a strict cut-off time - I was lucky, but others had been repeatedly less so. What was most frustrating was the arrival of large bundles of applications from specialist visa agencies ahead of us, handed over to paid placeholders.

The DanceTabs article stresses that the designs are strictly under wraps, so I doubt it. The reminder that Jasper Conran will be producing these costumes has made up my mind about going - I had been thinking about selling my ticket. I too have high hopes!

Well - when I went there on a working visa I had to get tested for HIV!

I've just been listening to one of my old Bolshoi recordings, which prompts me to say: if you don't mind opera and if the Mariinsky is doing either Eugene Onegin or Queen of Spades and there's no interesting ballet on that evening - GO! No-one does the big two Tchaikovskys like the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky - there's over a century of knowledge and love of them in every phrase coming out of the pit. Even when the playing or singing is on the ropey side, I'll forgive them anything for the phrasing: I miss it dreadfully.