Dawnstar

Yep! I'd take shorter intervals as well. Although I will say that since joining the Ballet Forum intervals longer than the standard 20 minutes have become a lot more enjoyable than the used to be because I'm often able to find people to meet up & talk to. In over 15 years of ROH operagoing I never found myself repeatedly bumping into the same people & getting to recognise them but I have found that with ballet. I suppose it's because with opera the vast majority of fans will see only 1 performance per run whereas with all the different ballet casts far more people go to multiple performances in a run. I'd definitely be on board with weekday matinees. I can't think offhand of the ROH ever having weekeday matinees except occasional Bank Holidays & Nutcrackers at Christmas, and since those are both times when the trains are even more likely than usual to be screwed up it's often not very helpful.

I enjoyed it this afternoon, and didn't mind that there weren't the interviews & so on that are done for the live cinecasts. I thought the production overall was very good apart from a couple of things I found disappointing (as far as I could interpret Bertha's mime it just seemed to be general forboding about Giselle dying rather than any attempt to tell the legend of the Wilis. The gravestone going see-through was unfortunately rather risible.) or puzzling (why was it set in 1792 rather than the usual Medieval setting? Though admittedly the late 18th century setting was only apparent with the aristocrats' costumes as the rest were standard stage peasant.). Having previously seen the RB's peasant pas de six & the UUB & ENB's peasant pas de deux I was surprised to get a peasant pas de quatre in this production. I'm now wondering how many other variations of numbers of peasants there are out there! It looked to my inexperienced eyes that it was the second male & female solos that corresponded to those used when it's a pdd. As far as I could judge the stage looked pretty big, especially in terms of width, so the corps had plenty of room in Act II. I thought Smirnova & Tissi danced excellently & acted very well yet unfortunately I wasn't really moved by them: I was sitting there thinking "good acting" rather than feeling it. Maybe I've just run out of emotion after 2 ENB Giselles last week & Manon last night. I also find Smirnova rather too naturally aristocratic looking to make a believable peasant girl (the suggestions somewhere in the ENB Giselle thread about Giselle possibly being the illegitimate daughter of the Duke would certainly make sense for her Giselle, though as far as I could tell it didn't seem to be indicated in this production) so I prefered her in Act II. I expected her to do the hops & she did. Likewise he did entrechats. I was very impressed by Potskhishvili's Hilarion & was not at all surprised to find when I looked him up afterwards that he also dances Albrecht & has just been promoted to Principal. He got a bit more dancing to do before Hilarion's demise than in some productions, which I was very pleased by both because it makes more dramatic sense & because he did it very well.

My Strauss preferences are Rosenkavalier, Arabella & Ariadne. I have to put up with a Loy production in order to see the ROH do Ariadne but I don't want to see Elektra enough to do so. As for Arabella, the ROH haven't done that in 20 years. Yes, I have been waiting that long! Although given their current apparent preferred production style if they ever do do Arabella I would probably hate the production anyway. Did it happen at the end then, as the review mentions no spoilers when talking about the ending? I really do wonder what on earth goes on in some opera directors' heads.

I've never got to grips with multi-screen watching because I can't manage to listen to more than one lot of commentary at once. I've watched all the TDU (definitely not live!) but the tennis I'm just checking the results.

That was a wonderful performance for my first Manon of this run. For me Des Grieux is the emotional centre of the piece & I have to be moved by him to be moved by the piece overall. Bracewell fully delivered. I had high hopes for his Des Grieux after loving his Romeo & he absolutely lived up to them. I thought his Act I performance was very good, with a lovely solo, but he seemed to get even better in Act II & had me in tears both at his pleading with Manon in the brothel scene & in the bracelet pdd. In Act III I was aching for Des Grieux & what he was driven to for love. I thought Naghdi also had an excellent debut. Again I thought she was very good in Act I but seemed to be even better from when she entered in full dress in Act II, queening it over the gathering. During her being passed round all the men I found myself thinking that thank goodness that hasn't been toned down in the way the Arabian has! I thought Acri, who I have seen as Lescaut before, was excellent. I really enjoyed his drunk solo & the following pdd with the third of tonight's debutantes, O'Sullivan. I wouldn't have really thought of her as Mistress casting but I was very pleasantly impressed by her performance. Whitehead & Avis were both wonderfully awful! I'd forgotten how difficult I find it to identify dancers in Manon with so many characters wigged & heavily made up. For instance it took me several minutes to twig that it was Pantuso as the boy whore, as her blonde wig really threw me. As for the various Courtesans & Clients I never managed to get them properly worked out. Was it Hay in a grey wig as one if the creepier Clients?

I'm afraid my photos at the start of the curtain call are hopelessly out of focus as I was shaky from the emotion of the swamp pdd, a habitual problem I have after Manons & R&Js (the funeral scene in Mayerling is useful for calming down after the emotional climax of that!).

I definitely agree with this. Since my train timetable changed last year the final fast train is now at 23.09 so if it's a 7.30pm start of a 3 hour work then I have to really leg it if anything runs late, or get a much slower train that doesn't get in until nearly 1am. It's also difficult to concentrate on a peformance if you're worrying about whether or not you'll make the train. I'd particularly like some 7pm weekday starts since it seems the occasional 7pms are only ever on Saturdays & so many Saturday performances I can't get to at the moment due to incessant engineering stopping the trains.

I would have liked to have seen a BRB Swan Lake but by the time the casts were announced there wasn't much ticket availabilty for matinees & with the possible strikes & having seen 2 ENB SLs only weeks earlier I decided not to go in the end. I dread to think how long the coach to Birmingham takes.

@Sophoife Are you finding time amid all your tennis watching to also watch the Tour Down Under?

I see Nina Stemme did the first night but has missed the 2 subsequent performances so if you do go then don't bank on seeing her. I'm not going to see it myself as I'm not keen on the piece, too violent for my taste though I gather from the reviews that this production keeps much of the violence offstage.

It is depressing that at the moment one has to have this trains caveat every time one books tickets, and for engineering as well as strikes. I'm actually relieved that, never having seen Morales dance, I don't therefore need to try to go to Birmingham to see his farewell.

Same here except I don't have the excuse of it being my first time as I saw 5 casts in 2019 (plus 2 ENB casts earlier the same year). I say that R&J is my favourite score written as a score & Manon is my favourite compiled score, as I can't choose between them. I had tears in my eyes just hearing some of the music played on the piano when watching the recent Insight stream & re-watching the 2018 one. Hayward replacing Takada has rather thrown a spanner in the works of planning! I had planned to try to see Hayward/Sambe with Campbell as Lescaut & skip Takada/Campbell but now I'd both really like to see Hayward/Campbell again, as I thought they were fabulous together last time, and to see Campbell as Lescaut, which I've not seen as he didn't dance it last run. I've got 3 weeks to decide... Of course I may not be able to get rush tickets for either! Thanks. Maybe Cuthbertson was somewhat marking it at the rehearsal, which would be understandable given it's her first full length ballet in a year and a half.

I did give Cuthbertson's Juliet a second go, in 2022 when she'd come back from her first maternity leave, but still remained unmoved by it, hence I hadn't planned to give her Manon a second go.

Oh dear, now I'm going to regret not seeing that cast. I was already regretting not seeing Ball, as I thought he was very good in 2019. The problem with the Ballet Forum is that it feels like every cast I don't/can't see always seem to get reviewed as giving amazing performances so I feel disappointed & envious that I can't see them all.

May I ask if this in comparison to previous runs? I haven't planned to see her this time around as when I saw her last time I found her Manon did not move me.

When watching the end of Act I on Sunday Wilfred's attempts to get Albrecht away suddenly vividly made me think of Benvolio getting Romeo away after Tybalt's death. I wonder if Arrieta is now slightly repenting of his generosity in giving Frola Tuesday's performance, as with today's matinee the latter is now going to end up doing one more performance than the former!

5 years after first seeing Manon I now discover that I've misunderstood the impart of that role. I thought that she was dressed as a boy to appeal to male patrons who had bisexual or gay leanings!

I've not sat in that exact seat for Swan Lake but in the last run I saw several performances from various of the bench seats in row C just behind. The most important things I can remember missing were the vision of Odette at the end of Act III and the deaths of Odette & Von Rothbart in Act IV. Given row B is slightly further forward the view will be slightly better but I suspect those moments would probably still not be visible. Some of Siegfried's moping around at the side of the stage in Act I is also not visible. I don't recall missing anything significant in terms of dancing & I personally thought the production was better seen from the far left than the far right of the stalls circle, having tried both. ETA I probably should clarify that I don't personally think that the view is worth the £118 that the ROH is charging for row B for Swan Lake but if you can't find anywhere else that you are able to sit where there are still tickets available then, well, I guess it depends on your budget & how much you want to see that particular performance as to whether it would be worth it for you.

Yes, I saw that on their Twitter earlier & replied to say that I'd taken some curtain call photos in a similar style but mine were accidental! I don't know how photographers manage to do blurring in a deliberate & controlled way. My jaw dropped when I also saw on ENB's Twitter earlier that Frola was dancing with his 4th Giselle in 5 days tonight. I don't know how dancers do it! It's not even as if that he's partnered Kase recently in anything else (at least not as far as I can recall) unlike Khaniukova & Takahashi.

Yes, it doesn't make sense given this Saturday's Manon is showing as sold out & the Friday rush tickets for that have yet to be released. At least I jolly well hope they haven't been released as I'm hoping I'll be able to get one tomorrow.

I was the other way around, I didn't remember the Gentlemen part but had remembered that there was a section involving G.M. & the courtesans.

I thought the Telegraph interview was very good as an interview but I had been hoping that there might be some La Strada rehearsal footage shown, which there wasn't. So I still feel none the wiser as to what style the choreography will be & therefore whether or not I want to consider seeing it.

Now the programme has been announced, is anyone able to let me know if Ballade, Larina Waltz & Eve are classical in style on contemporary? I know the new work by Arielle Smith could be anything so I'd have to take a chance on that but I'd like to know the style of the existing works if possible in order to decide whether or not to attend.

It feels slightly ironic that they are fundraising in London to put on a new production of Fille in Ukraine when London hasn't seen Fille for too long! The line-up of dancers is certainly appearling but having had a look at the prices I'll have to think about it.

When I checked the Manon cast & tickets page this morning the casting for Monsieur GM had reappeared, though not that for the Mistress. When I checked again this evening the casting for Monsieur GM had disappeared again. Goodness knows what's going on with it!