Sebastian

Tickets gone back to the box office

Friday ticket gone back to the box office

Friday ticket gone back to the box office

3 hours ago, Dawnstar said:

If anyone can identify the fairytale character on the left then I'd love to know the answer because he baffled me. (It's not the Wolf, who's on the right.) 

Based on the characters traditionally expected in the Act III procession, maybe Beast (as part of Beauty and the Beast)? 
 

In answer to your earlier question about the Prologue Fairies @Dawnstar you will be pleased to know that their music was played in the order given in the score, I.e. the variations came in the same order as usual. 
 

Congratulations to conductor Philip Ellis for tonight driving the score at tempi which approach the authentic rehearsal metronome marks (rather faster than we have got used to at the Royal Ballet). Was every cast member to my taste? No, but all showed that speed is no obstacle to dancing this wonderful ballet, despite what we are sometimes told. 
 

Incidentally, three choreographers are credited in the programme. Petipa, of course, and also Peter Wright (it is his production and Wright in turn credits Frederick Ashton for an Aurora solo and a pas de quatre variation). But equal prominence is also given to Lev Ivanov, as if Sleeping Beauty is like Swan Lake or Nutcracker. Does anyone know why? As BRB will not have made a mistake, what did Ivanov contribute to this production? 
 

Sunday ticket now gone, Friday still available. 

Sunday ticket now gone, Friday still available. 

I can’t use my standing tickets for the upcoming double bill in the ROH Linbury:

LARMES DE COUTEAU / FULL MOON IN MARCH 

Friday 26th April 7.45pm - one ticket £8

Sunday 28th April 3pm - one ticket £8

Anyone interested please PM as well as posting here.

Thank you.

Both tickets gone now

7pm gone now. 1pm Naghdi, Ball still available. 

Sadly I can‘t be in London this weekend so selling the best Upper Slips seats (CC1):

1pm Naghdi, Ball - £23

7pm Lamb, Clarke - £23

If interested please send a PM as well as posting here. Thank you. 

I booked two excellent tickets at £35 each for this event:-

https://lpo.org.uk/event/gotterdammerung/

Now I sadly can't go. Will sell separately or together. Tickets in that area - side stalls - long since sold out.

Anyone interested please send me a PM as well as posting here. 

Many thanks. 

On 22/03/2024 at 16:47, Sebastian said:

While we wait for hopefully definitive information from Russian historians, here are some interim notes. Wiley, who examined the papers in the 1980s, says there were plans developing before Tchaikovsky died. And Petipa, in his memoirs, writes of Tchaikovsky‘s „delight“ at the thought that Petipa would do Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky‘s death prompted a production of the Odile act as part of a memorial concert, extracted from what had already been set for the autumn 1894 season. 

Thank you Amelia. Seems this wasn’t so far off. 

Ticket gone now

Ticket gone

D13 SCS for next week's ROH dress rehearsal of the new production of the opera Carmen, 7pm Tuesday 2nd April. £9.

Please PM as well as posting here if interested.

D13 SCS for next week's dress rehearsal of the new ROH production of the opera Carmen, 7pm Tuesday 2nd April. £9.

Please PM as well as posting here if interested.

Sorted.

Anybody got a spare seat for the general rehearsal at 7pm on 2nd April of the new ROH Carmen?
 

Please PM if you can help out.
 

Many thanks, Sebastian 

All tickets gone now

3 hours ago, Roberta said:

 

 
Many thanks @Roberta Can I ask for the source of this paragraph? 

Some quotes re “that dress”:-

>>In a review of Kshesinskaya in Swan Lake in 1901, it states: "The ballerina was very effective in the second act, in her elegant black dress, which went so well on her, and danced the famous pas d’action with aplomb and great artistic finish.”

(From Novosti i birzhevaya gazeta (6 Apr. 1901), p. 3. via Wiley, Roland John, The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov)

>>Maya Plisetskaya notes this: "The division into the “black” and “white” adagios came to the Bolshoi from the West. The foreign ballet troupes that began visiting at the end of the 1950s reinterpreted Odile, the daughter of the evil genius Rothbart, as the black swan. This division took root."

(From I, Maya Plisekskaya by Maya Plisetskaya)

>>Cyril W. Beaumont wrote: "Odile, we are told, is the daughter of Rothbart the magician, but since he makes her assume the likeness of Odette, the expression 'daughter' is more a convenient figure of speech for what is clearly a familiar spirit. That such was the authors' intention is corroborated by the fact that Skalkovsky, describing a performance of Swan Lake at the Maryinsky Theatre in 1899, records that immediately after Siegfried asked Odile - believing her to be Odette - for her hand in marriage, the great hall went dark and Odile changed into an owl."

(From The Ballet Called Swan Lake by Cyril W. Beaumont)

More from the costume historian (via BalletAlert):-

>>ART OF THE PRIMA BALLERINA recording says the following: "Today, we usually see Odile dressed in a black version of Odette's costume; but this is a recent innovation. The original Odile was dressed in a brightly colored, festive costume, and she won the prince by her beauty and charm, rather than by virtue of any magic spell. Diaghilev's production featured this brightly colored attire, and Markova wore a yellow tutu topped with gold brocade and trimmed with pearls when she first danced it with the Vic-Wells."
 

>>In BALLET (magazine) vol. 3 no. 4, 1947, in a review of International Ballet's SWAN LAKE - CWBeaumont writes of Odile: "Miss Gollner wears a dark green tutu decorated with pale green sequins which gives her a sinister snake-like appearance." In vol. 5. no. 2 of the same magazine in the same year, the same author, in an articles about some observations on the role of Odile, notes: "...the present Odile wears black and gold, but i have seen skirts of other colors, such as orange, and mauve."

>>My hunch is that the…photocard, identified in handwriting on the back as having been bought in moscow in 1930, shows a Soviet couple, no later than 1930, as Siegfreid and Odile. Whatever color her tutu, it's obviously not black.

28 minutes ago, Roberta said:

So... the question remains as to when Odile turned into a 'Black Swan'. 

One answer, as above, is that her bodice may have looked black - in her midnight blue - from the outset, but with a multicoloured skirt (which was long not a sticking out tutu).  
 

Cyril Beaumont, in the 1938 edition of Complete Book of.Ballets, refers to Rotbart “dressed to represent a black swan, and his daughter Odile”.