Dawnstar

Tonight's cast list is just up (I'm not going tonight but I'm interested because of Friday) & I'm rather surprised to see Dias as the Mistress. I know the Mistress casting was removed from the ROH's website some time ago but thus far it has kept to what was originally given & originally this cast was Choe. I wonder if she's injured or just unwell & therefore likely to be back on Friday. Also, Masciari as the Beggar Chief is another role debut I think? https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/43/manon-by-kenneth-macmillan/cast-list/54638

I had absolutely no idea that one had to sign up for offers. How is one supposed to know that one should sign up? I created my account on the ROH website nearly 20 years ago! I've rummaged around in my account & changed some settings so it'll be interesting to see if any emails now arrive & I'm now wondering how much I've missed over the last 20 years, or however long it is they've had that option.

It's fortunate for her that Bolle has continued dancing for so long. I wonder if the galas she is organising in the next few months are part of trying to give herself further opportunities for dancing, apart from at the RB, once Bolle retires.

I liked Hamilton as the Fairy Godmother & Fairy Summer in Cinderella last season. To my inexpert eyes her dancing seemed to be on a similar level to the other dancers who I saw in the roles. I think the only other Ashton role I've seen her in was the White Couple in Les Patineurs & in that case I only saw the one performance so didn't have anyone to compare her with.

At least you've been given the choice though. What I'm pretty annoyed about is that many of us have not been given that choice, and there seems to be no obvious reason why.

@OnePigeon Mukhamadov was the dancer I thought of as a comparison too. (Not that I ever saw him live as he was before my time but based on videos.)

I'd like to know how the ROH decides who gets these discount emails. I've been booking with them for only a few months short of 20 years yet never seem to get any. I did buy some stalls tickets a few seasons ago, when prices were lower & package booking still existed, so it's not as if they can look at my ticket purchase history & say "Oh, she's never sat in the stalls so she won't be interested". Given how much prices have gone up for the classics in the last couple of seasons, I'm often having to pay £60+ for a stalls circle bench seat so why do they not think that I might consider paying £60+ for a stalls seat if I was given the opportunity? It's pretty annoying.

Given she's now been a First Soloist for 11 years, unfortunately it feels like if she was going to be promoted to Principal then it would have happened some years ago. (See also Choe, Zuchetti, Hay, etc.) I do wonder whether she would have made it to Principal if Monica Mason had remained AD for a few more years. I got the impression from various interviews with Hamilton over the years that she was a bit of a protegee of hers. Whereas she does not seem to be in favour with the current management when it comes to casting apart from MacMillan & modern works. When she went to Dresden as a Principal I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd decided to stay there. I can't understand why she is so little used in the more classical works. I know her classical technique is not considered the best but I honestly think she'd be better than some of the lower ranked dancers who are getting a go at some roles & not always excelling in them. I was extremely impressed by him in the Giselle cinecast in January. I thought he was a very exciting dancer in a powerful, virile way. While the RB has many very talented dancers in the different ranks, is there anyone among the upcoming men who is really exciting in that way?

So the offer is 40% off the £110 and £104 tickets? In which case I wish the ROH had sent it to me as that would bring the prices down to around £63-66 and I would consider paying that for an unrestricted view stalls seat given I'm already paying £39 for a restricted view stalls circle bench one.

A trail through the ROH database gives the following roles in the classics for Watson before he became Principal: Sleeping Beauty (Cavalier, Carabosse, English Prince), Nutcracker (Rose Fairy Escort, Spanish), Coppelia (Betrothal dance), Swan Lake (Spanish, Mazurka, Waltz, pas de trois), Giselle (pas de six), Raymonda Act III (Lead Hungarian), Bayadere (pas d'action). The only classical roles I can find once he became Principal are Albrecht & the Spanish Prince in Sleeping Beauty. I can't find any sign of Siegfried. (I'm also rather surprised to see he danced the Fourth Movement in Symphony in C a number of times as I wouldn't associate him with Balanchine.) The only lead roles he'd danced in full length ballets before being promoted to Principal were Romeo and Palemon. I wonder if he would have made it to Principal nowadays, when most of the Principals seem to be expected to dance most of the leading roles? As an aside I'm fascinated by the titles of some of the ballets in the 1990s & 2000s: Mr Worldly Wise; Cheating, Lying, Stealing; When We Stop Talking; Sawdust And Tinsel; A Stranger's Taste; Hidden Variables; Sleeping With Audrey; Castle Nowhere; This House Will Burn [who thought that was a good title at a newly-refurbished theatre that had burned down twice in the past?!]. In June 2003 Manon, R&J and Mayerling all had performances. I am very envious!

Watson did do the major MacMillan roles as well, didn't he. What I don't know is if he did anything more classical as he was coming up the company. Time for a rummage around the ROH performance database!

Looking again at the pricing for the MacMillan triple (without any offers as the ROH never send me any) I'm rather baffled by some of the relative pricing. Top price is £30 lower than for Manon, second price £16 lower but third price, the lowest in the stalls, is only £3 lower than for Manon. Among the mid-prices, the cheapest advance-sale seats in the stalls circle are £39 so £10 cheaper than for Manon but the next price point at £50 is £29 cheaper than some of the same seats were for Manon. I cannot understand how the RB calculate their prices. I would have expected them to set a top price for each programme then work down with each price being a percentage of the top price but that is very clearly not the case.

I can't think of anything else major* he's done since then. He's done various solo diverts e.g. the Arabian & various male fours e.g. Prince's Friends in Cinderella but I can't think of any really large roles. *Drum major pun not intended!

His last lead role would have been Prince Florimund in Sleeping Beauty last season. I think he was in the second block of performances so just after Cinderella but I'm not certain of that. I didn't try to see him then as I'd seen him in the role in 2019. Has anyone other than Edward Watson become a Principal primarily on the strength of their performances of modern choreography?

I saw Richardson's Nutcracker Prince debut last season but unfortunately he didn't do his scheduled performance this season, presumably due to either illness or injury. Sissens has done several performances of the role in the last 2 seasons but I've not seen him. He'd already done the Nutcracker Prince, Prince Florimund, Aminta & Des Grieux, and was due to do Romeo in 2019 but was injured, before Muntagirov's withdrawal from Onegin in 2020 first paired him with Osipova. So his casting in principal roles wasn't all due to Osipova wanting him as a partner.

I'm slightly surprised that departing Principal Campbell has been replaced by First Artist Serrano rather than a higher-ranked dancer. I know the management try to give dancers at all ranks casting opportunities but usually casting for cinema performances tends towards having more higher-ranked dancers.

@alison If it's balcony standing you're after then there are single ones showing up for most of the dates right now. It's so confusing how Friday rush tickets seem to appear & vanish repeatedly for an hour or so after rush starts. Can there really be that many people who put them in baskets then decide half or three-quarters of an hour later that they don't want them or is it sometimes the website playing up, I wonder?

@alison Yes, I somehow managed to get what I was after (see Manon thread). I just wish the seats would appear when they're supposed to so I didn't have to panic-refresh for several minutes while getting more & more stressed. I'm sorry you didn't manage to get what you were after.

Unfortunately I was unable to make any bookings when the Winter booking period opened due to being broke at the time so I've had to do all my Manons via Friday rush. Swan Lake was more annoying because I tried to book in advance but 2 of the 3 performances I wanted had already sold out of the stalls circle row C bench seats, not sure if it was while I was stuck in the queue or before public booking even opened. There's also the dilemma that the Friday rush stalls circle row C bench seats, being further away from the stage than the advance booking seats, are actually better in terms of losing a bit less of the near side of the stage so you get a worse view booking in advance than booking via rush. By the time I first booked with the ROH in 2004 I believe they had online booking, if I remember correctly. The Proms were still booking via forms though, as I remember a couple of seasons of filling those in at around the same time. I remember when the Proms moved to online booking the online queuing took so long in some years, 3-4 hours, that I was longing for the forms to still be used, especially as I rarely wanted to book more than 1 concert per year. I haven't seen anything at the Proms since before covid so I don't know if the online queuing still take hours.

Thanks @bridiem. Thank goodness that's the last of the Friday rushes I've had to do for Manon & I now have several rushes off before I'll be trying for Swan Lake!

Extremely relieved to report that I managed to get the tickets I wanted: 8th March for me & my mother plus 5th March for me. I've been so stressed about it that it took me several attempts to put in the right card number, I nearly started crying when I finally got the confirmation screen, & I'm still shaking!

Yet again the Friday rush tickets didn't show up on the dot of 1pm for me. After several minutes of frantic refreshing I was shaking so much from the adreneline that when they did show up I found it difficult to hold my mouse still enough to click on the correct seats! It looks like the confirmation screen has had a slight change in design, presumably in conjunction with the recent change of the how to choose seats screen.

Kaneko 3 years, O'Sullivan 2 years, Magri 3 years, Clarke 2 and a half years, Bracewell 4 years. Though all of them effectively lost a year of performing at First Soloist level because of covid & Bracewell had also lost nearly a year to injury before that. So Richardson at 2 and a half years & Sissens at 1 and a half years have probably had nearly as much performing time at First Soloist level as the others did but it doesn't feel as though they have had the same amount of leading role experience. So far Sissens has done Nutcracker Prince & will do Siegfried shortly while Richardson has done Nutcracker Prince & Romeo & will do Des Grieux shortly. Whereas Bracewell had done Nutcracker Prince, Siegfried, Franz & Romeo and Clarke had done Nutcracker Prince, Prince Florimund, Aminta, Des Grieux, Onegin, Siegfried, Albrecht & Romeo. May I ask who your 4 preferred Des Grieux are? Personally I've seen 4 Des Grieux live this run, Bracewell, Ball, Muntagirov & Hirano, plus Clarke at the cinema & I thought all of them justified being cast in the role. I agree with this feeling. I have no idea who the First Soloist you're referring to is but for me it's Sambe who I thought was excellent in the roles I saw him in as First Soloist such as Mercutio but I haven't been as keen on him in some of the big classical roles.

Hay has been a First Soloist for 9 years. Surely if he was going to make Principal he would have done so before now? I've just checked the biographies of all the current Principals & the longest any of them spent at First Soloist level before being promoted to Principal was 4 years. In terms of promotion momentum & who's getting roles it seems that Sissens or Richardson are the most likely candidate. Personally I'd prefer Richardson, as I find him a better actor, but I suspect Sissens is more likely. If either of them is definitely in line, then I'd rather they had another year at First Soloist level than get promoted in the next few months just because there's a vacancy. It feels as though neither of them has as much experience in a range of lead roles as the more recently-promoted men gained before their promotions (Clarke especially had already danced so many lead roles before he finally got promoted).

I am dreading tomorrow's rush. For ages, long before Campbell's retirement was announced, I'd been hoping to get tickets for 5th & 8th. Now the 8th is going to be a nightmare to try to get a ticket for & I'm worried that while I'm trying to get 8th then all the tickets for 5th will also go & I'll be left with nothing.