Dawnstar

I'm afraid that I had very little interest in seeing students perform & only ended up at the first performance because I wanted to see Campbell/Naghdi. I will say that the students considerably exceeded my expectations, helped by most of them being Upper School & therefore able to do "proper" ballet, i.e. pas de deux & en pointe. I thgouth beforehand that it might be a bunch of 12 year olds skipping around, like in the party scene in The Nutcracker. I'm still not sure I'd want to see an entire programme done by students though.

I've not been to any RB Insight events but I've been to pre/post event talks from other companies. While audience members asking really obvious questions can be a bit annoying, I find it much worse when people use the guise of asking a question to assert their own opinions in as longwinded & dogmatic a fashion as they can get away with. I don't feel that a Q&A session is an appropriate occasion for that sort of thing.

That's got me checking the other major UK opera & ballet companies' websites but none of them have a concert master/leader listed, just the conductor. If it was a Union demand then I'm guessing it would apply to all the companies? Maybe it's a hint that I should pay more attention to orchestras. I confess that quite frequently I find myself seeing the conductor entering the ROH pit & realise that, while I know exactly who is going to be singing that night, I have no idea who the conductor is!

Something I found myself wondering while wandering around on the ROH's website this evening: why do they list the concert master as well as the conductor for all forthcoming ballet performances? For Romeo & Juliet, for instance, is would surely be far more useful to know who will be dancing Mercutio, Tybalt, etc. but that information isn't given. I find it hard to belive that anyone - apart perhaps from the leader's friends & relations, who could find out privately from them - ever books a ballet performance based on who will be leading the first violins! Also every time I read it it slightly irritates me that the ROH uses "concert master", which seems like an Americanism, rather than "leader".

Given how many returns, or whatever they are, for main stage productions keep popping up you'd think there would be the odd one for the Linbury, even with it having far fewer seats. Oh well, I'm keeping a slot open in the probably vain hope that tickets might pop up nearer the time...

It's especially curious given the comments about trying to discourage regulars from buying so many seats - or perhaps that doesn't apply to regulars who are prepared to pay a few hundreds extra! PS While there have been some Forza seats made available subsequently, has anyone seen even a single seat become available for the similarly already sold out on 30th January Berenice? I've been checking every day myself but haven't seen any at all.

After reading all these raves for Nunez & Muntagirov I was delighted to check the ROH website just now & find a single side sc ticket available for next Saturday. So I'll be seeing my first Don Q a month earlier than planned. Now I'll just spend the next week praying Muntagirov doesn't join the injury ranks!

Are the costumes they're in the ones for the final act wedding? Is it usual for the RB to have to bring in a replacement from an external company when a dancer is injured or is exception & that they've run out of suitable men with so many injured/off elsewhere recently? (PS If I'm asking too many questions that are blindingly obvious to those of you that know the piece then someone feel free to tell me to stop!)

Thanks to those who have replied to my query about Muntagirov. Given how much I enjoyed Two Pigeons, I'd certainly be interested in any Ashton triple bill that was put on. As I don't know anything about the 3 pieces named I don't know if I'd like them or not but I'd give them a go & hope I would.

My mother loved Cuthbertson too & thought she was better than Naghdi. I enjoyed both their performances about equally but in different ways. Out of the two casts I saw the only point at which I felt I could really split them on merit was the Young Man's Act 2 solo, in which I thought Muntagirov was defininitely better than Campbell. This isn't to say that Campbell didn't do it very well but Muntagirov is so good technically that I would guess there aren't many dancers that he doesn't out-do in the big solos. (Was Muntagirov a late developer? I'm baffled as to why, when he trained at the RBS, the RB didn't snap him up straight away & that's the only possible reason I can think of.) Was he scheduled to dance or was he replacing Bracewell?

I'm looking forward to seeing it because I've not seen it before & because it'll be my first time seeing either Campbell or Magri in principal roles in a full-length ballet. I rather wish I was seeing Muntagirov too but the only one of his dates that I can make is sold out so I'll have to see if any desirable returns pop up in the next few weeks.

A beautiful photo! I ran out of time this morning before saying anything about The Cunning Little Vixen (which I suppose also goes on this thread, as I can't see anywhere else). I found it much better than I thought it might be. I've never seen a student performance before so I was afraid it might just be a bunch of 12 year olds skipping round while their relatives in the audience cooed over them. I was very relieved that we got a proper ballet, danced mainly by students who looked to be at the end of their training and all of whom I thought gave very good performances. I will be reading the RB's joiners list this summer with interest as surely some of them will be on it. The piece itself I really liked. I thought the choreography was a good blend of classical with animal-like movements & told the story clearly. I loved the costumes and, while I'm not generally a fan of projections, I can understand their use here both because of how the Gamekeeper was able to be portrayed as much larger than the animals & to save on building sets for just 3 performances. I hope that it will have a future beyond these 3 performances. It looks like it would be ideal to be performed to children as a first ballet. Having now liked both Asphodel Meadows & The Cunning Little Vixen more than I was expecting to I'm vaguely wondering if I should consider braving Frankenstein, which seems to elicit very mixed views.

Sadly not! He appeared to be in a lounge suit rather than evening dress. I'd love to see that. When I read books from the first half of the 20th century that have description of theatres full of people in evening dress I always wish I could see that. Unfortunately, as someone who worked 8 hours yesterday before dashing to the station to get the train down to London, evening dress isn't really a practical option! I went for the "I cannot justify paying that much for a single performance but I'm going to anyway even if it means I can't pay the rent on time*." option. Perhaps other people did that too. I've only seen R&J once before & that was a different production so I would like to be able to see all of the RB's production, and the casts were so tempting I couldn't pick just one. *NB I live with my mother so am unlikely to get evicted for late payment of rent. This option is probably not to be recommended for those renting commercially!

I went into my overdraft to buy decent tickets for last night & it was worth whatever interest my bank is going to charge me! So pleased I succumbed to the temptation of seeing Campbell & Naghdi together as I thought they were excellent both individually & as a pairing. I couldn't believe it when I realised Act 1 was almost at the end as it felt like it had only been going about 10 minutes! I cried in the final reconciliation scene, which I didn't on my earlier viewing. I don't know if I noticed more details this time because it was my 2nd viewing or because different dancers put in different details but I was particularly amused by the way Campbell twitched his shirt further open when the Young Man was first attracted to the Gypsy Girl!

An older man in full evening dress complete with top hat walked past us in the foyer a few minutes ago. I hope that all the "anti-elitist" ROH marketing people saw him & wept!

I confess to taking advantage of the slow ticket sales for this evening's performance to yesterday upgrade myself from the rv side sc I bought in Friday rush to 2nd row stalls & today grab a stalls seat for my mother too. After the decidedly expensive spring booking 2 weeks ago I'm thinking that it might save time just to have my wages paid directly to the ROH at the moment!

The website at https://www.roh.org.uk/productions/a-month-in-the-country-by-frederick-ashton still isn't showing the other ballets correctly for all dates either. When I look at the first night, 4th June, on the Overview page Naghdi is the first dancer listed followed by Nunez, Osipova, Watson & Bracewell, a random jumble of names from all 3 ballets. Then when I click on the See Prices button, to try to see the casts separated out, Naghdi isn't there at all, only Watson, Arestis & Avis are listed under The Firebird. 5th June is even more confusing but in a different way: there are 2 casts listed under each of the 3 ballets, except for The Firebird where Naghdi is the only one listed in the title role. The 16-dancer line-up for Symphony In C would certainly be a dream cast if it were to actually happen! 7th June has no casts listed for Month or Symphony & no title role for Firebird. I can only guess that the website has somehow managed to list the 7th June cast members under 5th June. 12th June has no dancers listed for any of the 3 ballets. 13th June is, like 4th June, missing the title role for Firebird. 14th June is missing the title role for Firebird, has 2 casts for Month & 10 dancers listed under Symphony. While noting the above from the individual See Prices pages, I've realised that the 5 names given for each date on the Overview keep changing as I click in & out. For instance the first night went from Naghdi, Nunez, Osipova, Watson, Bracewell to Naghdi, Nunez, Osipova, Watson, Watson & then back to the original. Cuthbertson, Hirano & Crawford are all duplicating on other dates. I have no technical knowledge of websites so I don't know how it's managed to do this but didn't anyone from the ROH's website team check that everything was displaying correctly once they had added the casts to the site? They must have the correct cast lists because if you look up each performance individually by date then those cast lists are correct, e.g. 12th June has everyone listed at https://www.roh.org.uk/events/blh5n. So why are they so odd on the overview page & the See Prices sub-pages? For comparison, I am signed in to the site but I don't have any sort of membership. On previous discussions of the website displaying casts wrongly, people signed in with various levels of Friends have said that they can see it correctly. That's all very well but if the ROH is trying to encourage new audiences then surely it's important to have it displaying for people who aren't signed in, or who only have a general public account, as well as for Friends. Sorry, this has ended up longer than I intended but the more I looked the more errors I saw!

Exactly. The same for the 1pm Friday rush tickets. In fact I don't think the ROH ever has any booking opening outside standard office hours, does it? (Unlike the Proms that have theirs on a Saturday morning.) I popped onto the ROH website just before 1pm this past Friday, grabbed a side stalls circle ticket for Tuesday's Two Pigeons, & was done within a couple of minutes. If I'd been using my phone I reckon it would have taken twice as long as each page loads more slowly on my phone than a PC, as well as it being harder to select a specific seat. I totally agree. I've just had a look at the homepage & currently the largest text by far is being used for "Open" and "Eat & drink".

Seconding this, especially when ticket booking & select-your-own-seat seating plans are involved. I only do ticket booking on my phone if I really have to. Frantically jabbing at tiny circles on my phone screen trying to select the right one is not my idea of fun! I'm still getting the old-style ROH web pages on both my laptop & phone at the moment. This is by typing in the URLs directly, not going to the new homepage, which I find very unhelpful. I have had one oddity for several months: in order to go back a page I usually have to click the back button not once but 4 times in rapid succession.

It looks like the Wikipedia synopsis of the second version isn't actually too far off the RB's one then. I guess I'll just have to hope I recognise Mercedes & Espada when they enter & can work out what they're doing in relation to the plot while watching! I'm interested to see Sarah Lamb pictured on the first page of @Bluebird's scan. I wonder why she isn't dancing Kitri in this run given she's evidently done the role before.

According to Wilton's website the DLR station is called Tower Gateway http://www.wiltons.org.uk/visit I've used Aldgate East on the handful of occasions when I've been to Wilton's & it only takes me about 5 minutes to walk from there, though I see Wilton's website says 9 minutes - admittedly I am a fast walker.

I didn't mean that she would be performing burlesque-style in this production but I was under the impression that she mostly performed as a burlesque singer. Perhaps I have got her mixed up with someone else.

Thank you very much for the clarification. It sounds like I might have to fork out the £8 for a programme for this one to get a proper synopsis specific to this production.

Given who is cast in these roles I presume they must be significant ones but neither is mentioned in the character list for the ballet on Wikipedia. Did Acosta invent additional characters for his production?

I looked it up & the Macmillan website has 3 different versions listed, apparently of differing lengths, though none of them sound like they're full length. I can't decide whether to give this a go or not. Morera, Hamilton & Soares are appealing but I'm not keen on what little I know about the burlesque style I gather Meow Meow is an exponent of.