Dawnstar

Thanks for the clarification. I'm glad to hear that.

Thanks for the clarification. I regret that I can't see her, given time is evidently rapidly running out, but I'm not going to embark on a 4+ hour journey to Sunderland or a 5+ hour journey to Plymouth given how difficult it is just to get the train an hour to London so often at the moment.

I'm pleased to see Dingman is partnering Cojocaru. I've been holding off booking until her partner was announced. I'm also pleased to see Samara Downs is dancing, as someone said on here a while ago that she might have retired. Not that I can see her though as she's only dancing in Plymouth & Sunderland, the two venues that are furthest away from me.

Would you rather those of us who sometimes draw attention to ENB's casting posts don't do so on here in future? Given that you seem to be implying that those of us who use Twitter/X are lacking in sanity, which isn't a very nice thing to read when I was only trying to be helpful by linking to ENB's post. ENB have also updated their website with the cast changes, though as they don't mark cast changes as such one would have to remember or look up the original casting to realise there was a cast change.

Thank you. That definitely sounds like the mixed bill I saw. I evidently found Les Sylphides less memorable than the other three pieces!

ENB have tweeted some cast changes. Fortunately not the wholesale cast replacements that they did for some Nutcrackers (& fortunately not involving Frola!).

Since Takada pulled out of her Nutcrackers I've been wondering if she'd end up being replaced by Hayward in Manon so I wasn't surprised when I saw the ROH website earlier. Now I have the dilemma of do I try to get a ticket to see Hayward with the Des Grieux I'd prefer to see or with the Lescaut & Mistress I'd prefer to see...

If you ever get it out of storage... Google only brings up references to performances that I certainly didn't see, e.g. 1978. (I wasn't born until 1985!)

I wish is was easier to find information about past ENB/LFB productions. I saw a mixed bill somewhere in the early 90s that as far as I can recall included Scherezade, Le Spectre de la Rose & The Dying Swan and I wish I could find out something about it, but there's no equivalent of the ROH's performance database.

Confused though I was by the Schaufuss version, it sounds from the descriptions as if I would have liked the following 2 productions even less so I guess it was good that I didn't see either of them!

I'm due to go on Friday too, as long as the trains, weather & my anxiety levels all behave. I have been checking ENB's website daily for the last couple of weeks to make sure Frola's still on the cast list!

Thanks for the confimation. I imagine I may have appreciated it more as an adult, as I would have hopefully understood it more. Was Tchaikovsky the equivalent of Drosselmeyer? I'm afraid I cannot remember any details of the production & nor do I have any visual memories of it.

Interesting that compared to the casting on the first page of this thread he's not only taken over 2 performances originally assigned to Gartside (who presumably is still not fully recovered) but also 2 performances originally assigned to Whitehead.

Was the Schaufuss Nutcracker the one where the characters in Act I were made to be Tchaikovsky's relations? If so then I remember being quite confused by it, albeit I was only aged about 7 at the time.

I hope they don't whack the prices up even further for next season's classics to pay for the new McGregor. I want to be able to afford to see the former & I have absolutely no desire to see the latter. I have yet to see anything by McGregor that I haven't disliked (yes, I did try Woolf Works, as that's supposed to be the one piece McGregor-dislikers like, but I disliked that too) & I can't bear dystopian fiction so I do not have to see this new one to know I won't like it.

I hope the dancers get at least one day off to slightly recover before they have to go into full Giselle mode!

I love this idea. Though the winner would have to be allowed to change to a different performance at the last minute if they had train problems on the previously selected day!

No, I use a camera, it's only a compact one & is getting rather elderly but it has a decent amount of zoom which helps. If I tried taking photos with my phone they'd be utterly useless, as I have a cheap phone with a lousy camera. I'm sorry you couldn't make it. We were on a crowded bus on Wednesday surrounded by people coughing so I'm amazed neither my mother have gone down with anything. I suppose there's still time but at least we got in the Nutcracker first! Admittedly I don't want to go down with anything in the next few days either, with ENB's Giselle in under a week.

I've had another thought on the mid-season timing: could it be because Tomas Mock retired in December, thereby leaving a vacancy at Soloist level?

I couldn't resist the indulgence of one more Nutcracker, even though I saw all tonight's cast last year too (not all together then). It's not often you get to see a cast where all 5 leads are among your favourite dancers. I thought they all gave fabulous performances. Nunez & Muntagirov are just perfection together. I nearly cried in the grand pas they were so lovely. Bailey & Boswell obviously aren't at that level of technical perfection, there were a couple of briefly off-balance moments in their pdd, but I thought they both portrayed their characters very well & I really enjoyed seeing them paired together in lead roles for the first time since The Cunning Little Vixen. I thought the SPF's solo seemed slower tonight than the ones I saw before Christmas. I know there have been a few comments about some of the less experienced SPFs having slower solos in recent performances but goodness knows Nunez isn't in that category. Could it be that with the change of conductor from before to after Christmas the tempo is more to do with Politi choosing to conduct more slowly than Litton rather than it being slowed down for particular dancers? It did give me a good view of the already-much-discussed gargouillades. It was nice to see Rovero as Clara's partner & a Rose Fairy Escort on the day of his promotion announcement. I love Donnelly as the Mouse King & I also love the irony when he's on stage as a Rose Fairy Escort in Act II watching Hans-Peter describe how he defeated him! Tomorrow I'm going to go through all this season's cast sheets & count how many Arabians Braendsrod has done because it feels like it's at least half the performances! I've already seen him both at the cinema & live with Cowley, so it was nice to at least see him with a different partner tonight. Nunez gave flowers to Muntagirov, Avis & the conductor. She mustn't have had much of that bouquet left! Medal correctly in place for Hans-Peter. And a few more curtain call photos as no-one else has yet posted any for this performance on here.

In the last Onegin run Donnelly & Sissens both danced Lensky while still First Artists so the Cranko estate evidently doesn't insist all the leads are at Soloist or above level. ETA To drag my post back on topic, I could imagine Rovero making a good Lensky.

Benno was the first possible role that came to my mind too, given the upcoming rep. However I'm pretty sure that in the last run the role was danced by at least one dancer then still at First Artist level, Joonhyuk Jun, so it doesn't seem to be a role that would require a dancer to be promoted to Soloist. Maybe Rovero will be dancing a significant role in the MacMillan triple bill, as we still have no casting for that. I can't think of anything major he's likely to be doing in Manon, as even if a replacement was needed in a hurry for either of the 2 main male roles there must be about a dozen men who'd be ahead of him in the queue.

That's great for Rovero. I wonder why they've done it mid-season? Could it mean he's got some biggish roles coming up? I seem to recall the last mid-season promotion was Reece Clarke a few years ago just before he debuted Onegin (not suggesting that Rovero is going to be dancing any role that big!).

I wish they announced the Rose Fairy in advance. I saw Hamilton the first time I saw the RB's Nutcracker live in January 2019 but haven't had the luck to see her again since & I'd really like to. In fact I have yet to see the same Rose Fairy live twice (unlike the Lilac Fairy!). @Emeralds I'm impressed you can write such a detailed review 2 weeks after a performance. I can't manage that much detail even straight after a performance.

Crikey, that means that cast are due to dance 3rd matinee, 4th, 5th & 7th matinee. They'll be knackered! (Unless ENB are doing one of the wholesale cast exchanges they did earlier in the run & the cast end up not doing one of their other forthcoming performances.)