Dawnstar

I would definitely be very interested in seeing Ashton's R&J. Would Deane's have been the production ENB were doing in the mid-2000s? I saw an ENB R&J in Bristol in somewhere around 2004 or 2005 which I unfortunately don't remember in much detail.

@alison Railing collapsed?! If by restricted view seat you mean stalls circle C22 then having sat there once for a Swan Lake it was a bit like watching a tennis match, constantly looking from side to side to try to look round the pillar!

I agree. I was under the impression that the Festival of New Choreography works were all being performed in the Linbury so I didn't even consider looking at ticket availability because the Linbury almost always sells out so quickly. If I had known in advance that it was on in the main auditorium I have decided not to go anyway, since the part of the Junker piece shown on World Ballet Day did not appeal to me at all, but I would have at least considered it. It's good to see from @Rob S photos that the dancers are in pointe shoes for 3 of the 4 pieces.

More of a shame that they couldn't have turned off their phone before the performance started!

Well, after half an hour of incessant refreshing a pair of rush tickets popped up on the opposite side of the stalls circle to the 2 I had already booked so I was able to nab one of those. I suppose someone had them in their basket then decided not to buy them. Though I am now even more confused about what the Friday rush ticket limit might be. @alison Today nothing showed up for me for about a minute and a half after 1pm & when the rush seats did show up many had already gone so they must have shown up earlier for some people. I was after 23rd so it might have varied for different dates, though in that case I would have expected those for 17th to show up before those for 23rd as occasionally they appear in date order. ETA @alison I don't know what sort of tickets you're after but right now there are a couple of balcony standing & a couple of stalls circle bench seats showing up for tomorrow's matinee.

Since every Principal was cast as Giselle or Albrecht this time around, if they were to only cast dancers who didn't get the lead roles for the next run then there wouldn't be any Principals cast, which seems very unlikely to happen. I didn't know they did R&J in the round. I'd definitely rather see it not in the round, as I find it distracting having so many audience members in view even for Cinderella so for the far more moving R&J I really don't think I'd like it. It's rather a pity they couldn't do something else for London then, rather than just more Nutcrackers, but I suppose it would require too much rehearsal time.

Does anyone know for certain what the ticket limit is for Friday rush tickets? Today for the first time ever I was trying to get 3, having only ever tried for 1 or 2 before, and when I had added the first 2 tickets it was telling me I could add 7 other tickets before reaching the limit but then when I tried to add a 3rd it told me I had reached my ticket limit so I had to just take the 2 I was able to get. I feel like previously I've occasionally sat next to groups of 3 or 4 people on a rush ticket bench so I'm wondering if a) I'm misremembering that & the limit has always been 2 or b) the website was playing up as it so often does.

Cambridge does not seem to be having a good week with audiences & phones. I was at a matinee at the Arts Theatre today & a few minutes into Act I a phone went off. The person actually answered it & said "I can't talk right now. I'm at the theatre." before hanging up!! (I suppose I can only be grateful that the audience in my vicinity at Manon last night all behaved impeccably.)

Apropos the 75th Anniversary, I'm just reading ENB's Twitter thread on their new season and one of them says "We’re inviting our fans from all around the world to a 10-day summer celebration online to mark our 75th Season. More details to be announced soon!" which rather makes it sound as if they may not be going to do an in-person celebration. https://twitter.com/ENBallet/status/1758130327380525374

I'm surprised that the Skeaping Giselle is back next year, I would have expected perhaps a season off then back the following season, but given it is coming back so soon I'm disappointed that there are so few London performances. I was hoping that when it returned I'd be able to catch some of the casts I couldn't see this time (& be able to see Frola with only a single Giselle!) but with performances over only 4 days I'll probably only be able to see 2 performances at most. I'm not sure about the new Nutcracker: if it's traditional then I'll probably try to see it but I'll want to wait for reviews, in case it turns out to be some modern reinterpretation, and by that time it might have already sold out. I'll be continuing to avoid Khan's Giselle. I don't know about the Forsythe, I've never seen anything by him so I'll have to do some research & think about it. ETA Missed that the thread has gone onto page 2. Add me to the list of people who would like to see Le Corsaire again as I enjoyed it in 2020. I had also hoped beforehand that maybe ENB would do either Romeo & Juliet or Manon next season but no.

I feel too tired to comment properly now so just to say I thought Ball was wonderful, I think I finally "got" Cuthbertson's Manon part-way through Act II, and, oh, the music. There are 3 pieces of music that I could contentedly die listening to & the music for the swamp pdd is one of them. PS Fortunately got the last train of the night comfortably.

It is there. If you click on the + by Koen Kessels' name then it opens up a list of all 6 leading roles. As someone who doesn't have trains to London running most weekends in May I'm very relieved by the lack of Saturdays in the Winter's Tale scheduling as it actually gives me a choice of dates for each cast (unlike Manon & SL where all the Saturday performances mean I am very limited in when I can see the casts I want to try to see). So I guess it's swings & roundabouts with different schedulings suiting different audience members.

I was about to DM you & ask if the ticket for sale you'd posted meant you wouldn't be there to organise the meet-up tonight but evidently that's not the case! See you in a few hours.

Tonight's cast list is up nice & early. A couple of changes among the smaller roles from the first Cuthbertson/Ball performance by the looks of things. If the cast could all remain healthy & uninjured throughout the performance & not need replacing then I'd be very grateful as I've discovered that if I miss the 23.09 then I'll have a journey involving 2 replacement buses & won't get home until 2am, so I really, really need the performance to finish on time!!

I saw an encore screening yesterday. Sadly we did not get any cast members turning up at the cinema, only some very annoying audience members! (See audience behaviour thread.) I realised while watching the screening that it was actually the first time I've ever seen Manon at the cinema/on video, as the 2019 run didn't get a cinecast & the 2018 one was a few months before I started watching the RB properly. I thought all the close-ups really enhanced the piece & I only wish there was a way to get close-ups when seeing live performances! I wasn't sure what I'd think of Osipova's Manon, as I'm not very keen on her Mary Vetsera (not seen her Juliet), so I was pleased to find that I did like her in the role. I thought Clarke was excellent as Des Grieux. Given he is so tall & good-looking I wasn't sure what he'd be like with the vulnerability but I thought he conveyed it very well. The solos looked lovely with his lines. I thought Campbell was terrific as Lescaut. I hope I'll be able to catch him live in the role as well, not having seen him before because of him only doing Des Grieux in the 2019 run (also want to see him as Des Grieux again too, I'm going to have to be very lucky with rush tickets...). I love Magri as the Mistress but do hope she gets to do Manon next time. I've seen Avis as G.M. before but the close-ups really enhanced his performance, from the first sneer at his Act I entrance to the end of Act II when the expression on his face as he killed Lescaut was really quite scary. Is it wrong that even when he's playing the vile, abusive Gaoler I still think Braendsrod so good-looking?! Among the small roles, I particularly enjoyed Whitehead making the most of his Client with some priceless facial expresstions.

I'm quite surprised by Cuthbertson with Corrales. I would have thought he would be too short for her, though I suppose there's not as much partnering required in this as in the classics (from what I can recall). Pantuso is certainly having a good season, debuting first as Clara & now this. She has stood out for me in the corps since she joined. I thought seeing it once or twice would be sufficient (I've not seen it live before) but now there are dancers I'm very interested in seeing in all 4 casts! I had rather hoped Lamb would do Perdita one more time, so I could see her in the role that she created, but it's not entirely a surprise that she's moved on to the older role. I couldn't decide if Bracewell was more likely to be cast as Leontes or Florizel. Florizel it is. Though I hope he gets a go at Leontes some time in the future. I was thinking of Magri as a possible Perdita so I'm slightly surprised to see her as Paulina. Glad to see Hamilton has got a decent-sized role for once, as another Paulina. A few notable absences: No Campbell, either reprising Florizel or getting to do anything else. He must be the most under-used Principal (not counting the long-term injured ones) this season by a long way. No Hay, another former Florizel. No Clarke. I thought he would reprise Polixenes if he didn't get Leontes. Maybe Osipova requires him to parter her guesting somewher else! No Edmonds, who seems the right type for Polixenes.

Unless Hirano dances every performance or they persuade some of the former Leontes out of retirement then there'll have to be! There are several dancers who I'd like to see in the role but, given I'm going on a recollection of the role from 10 years ago & many of my casting hopes/guesses for this season have turned out to be wrong, my hopes will probably bear no resemblance to the actual casting!

At the moment the presumably-access seats are showing at £49-£140 for each of the last 4 performances so that wouldn't be giving the Access members a discount. Yes, that would be far more useful considering that the vast majority of potential ticket bookers must be non-Access people.

The cinecast audiences at my local cinema tend to mostly be older too, but that's evidently no guarantee of good behaviour! It was about half full yesterday. The encores never sell out. Your mention of technical issues reminds me that we also a had a few brief sound glitches & one brief picture glitch yesterday, but compared to the audience annoyances they barely registered with me!

I wonder how many Winter's Tale casts there are likely to be? There are 11 performances so if it were to be cast like many RB full-length works then at 2 performances per Principals there would be 5 or 6 casts. However looking at how it was cast during previous runs they had smaller numbers of casts, so perhaps only 3 or 4 casts is more likely? I've never seen Winter's Tale live before so I'm thinking of going to a couple of performances, although I don't recall being madly keen on the music or some of the choreography when I saw the cinecast of the original cast a decade ago.

I know audience behaviour at the ROH cinecasts cannot be hoped to be as good as that at the ROH itself, but yesterday's Manon encore screening had probably the worst audience I've suffered at a cinecast. It started with more people than usual not turning up until the pre-show interviews were well underway, most of whom decided that it was fine to talk at normal volume while finding their seats. People likewise began to talk loudly as soon as each act ended so Darcey Bussell & Petroc Trelawney were virtually inaudible & for once I was glad of the subtitles. Then several times during Act I someone sitting near the front got out their phone & was taking photos of the screen. Eventually a woman, in the voice of someone goaded beyond endurance, snapped out "Put your phone away!". While I completely agreed with her sentiments, I wish she could have chosen a more suitable time to voice them than in the middle of Des Grieux's first solo. A few minutes into Act II a phone rang on 3 occasions in a short space of time and then later in the act a phone rang again, whether the same or another I couldn't tell. The owner of the latter phone finding it necessary to accompany silencing of said phone with some inane comment along the lines of "Oh, is that MY phone". All I can say is it's a good thing that, apart from the usual coughings, rustlings & whisperings, there weren't any extra interruptions in Act III or I might now be in jail for murder! The cinema capped it off by cutting the film as soon as the bows finished so there were no credits.

As someone who this season has been in permanent residence on the row C side stalls circle bench seats this season, I was relieved when I saw the Winter's Tale & Ashton triple bill prices for those seats the other day. Although I had hoped that the cheapest stalls seats for the Ashton triple might be a bit lower priced so I could have treated myself to one sojurn in the stalls this season, but not to be at £96.

I don't quite understand how Sarasota performing The Walk to the Paradise Garden is going to work. The company are due to be in the Linbury only from 4th-9th June but the programme that The Walk to the Paradise Garden is part of has 1 performance on 7th June then the other 4 of its 5 performances from 18th to 22nd June. So do they leave however many dancers are needed for The Walk to the Paradise Garden behind, to have to hang around in London for over a week until they can actually perform again, while the rest of the company flies back to America or do some dancers fly back to America on say 10th June then have to fly over to London again on say 17th June? Either way seems far from ideal. It feels as though it would make more sense to have the short works as part of the other Ashton programme, which has performances on 6th, 10th, 15th & 19th June.

It was showing the same yesterday so it's probably not that likely to change later today/tomorrow. I'm aware from this thread that it's due to access seats but it still does get frustrating having to repeatedly check multiple performances just in case any of the tickets showing as available are actually available.

I didn't realise that Thameslink was going to be screwed south of London as well next weekend. I know it'll be screwed north of London because of the East Coast mainline signalling works. If I manage to get a rush ticket for 17th matinee then I'll be busy praying that the Liverpool Street line behaves itself, as it'll be my only option. There are times when it feels like half the trains in the country aren't running at weekends!