Dawnstar

On 20/04/2024 at 17:47, Rachel H said:

At the matinee of 'Swan Lake' this afternoon, the couple next to me started humming along during act 2! I shushed them, and the woman looked at me as if to say 'what's the problem? This is jolly isn't it,' and started humming a bit louder. They got another 'shush' from me, which did the trick.

Yesterday evening someone near me, though I wasn't certain who, did a bit of humming during Siegfried's solo at the start of Act II & Odette's solo later in the same act. I found myself thinking that there's a distinct advantage to less well-known ballet scores, given some people seem to hum along when they recognise music.

For me the difference in sound is not enough to justify the difference in cost & travel time. But then I'm not an audiophile. For productions I do want to see I abandond the amphitheatre years ago in favour of the side stalls circle because I prioritise being able to see the acting over the sound quality.

1 hour ago, Candleque said:

Too bad they aren't listening. This to me is another indicative factor as to why so much ROH marketing seems illogical. They seem caught up in their own self image as 'The House' and ignore that the main brand to ticket buyers is either the Royal Ballet or the Royal Opera. Yes some people like both, but they are different art forms with content that should not be treated the same. 

Ballet is HUGE on Instagram, but the Royal Ballet doesn't even have their own account. What a miss. As someone who works in marketing, I am forever amazed at how little they care about the needs of their different audiences or understand how digital platforms actually work. 

There is a Royal Ballet Twitter account but the last time anything was posted was nearly a year ago. Now it's only the Royal Opera House account that posts regularly. So they definitely seem to be pushing the venue as a whole rather than either of the two artforms that share it. Well, I say two artforms but based on their posts they seem to think they also host a third artform: catering!

I'm puzzled by the description of the house as "crumbling". I thought that the reason the family took in boarders was because a decent house was their only asset at the time. I can't believe they would have attracted several boarders of professional social standing if the house had been falling to bits! I've always imagined it as a solid, probably Victorian, townhouse.

Teo Dubreuil as Benno tonight. I think his debut? It'll make a change from seeing him doubling Von Rothbart anyway! (I'd hoped I might get to see one of the new Von Rothbarts tonight, but no.)

And the way (non-offer) ticket prices have risen in the last few seasons I can't afford to do either even if I wanted to!

I've not had any offers for Lucia either, even though I did as suggested in the discussion about who did/didn't receive offers for the MacMillan Triple & changed my email preferences. Since then I keep on getting emails exhorting me to dine in the ROH restaurant or buy gifts in the ROH shop but no ticket offers. Given I've been seeing opera at the ROH for 20 years but in the last few years I've been to a lot more ballet than opera, and I've never seen their Lucia production, I would have thought the ROH would consider me a prime target for ticket offers to try to get me to increase my opera viewing again, but evidently they disagree.

I'm one of those people who is put off seeing this production by the blood. I don't see the point of getting a listening-only seat though. It's much easier & cheaper to listen to a CD or radio broadcast.

12 hours ago, Fonty said:

Talking of which, did the Lorna Hill books deal with the issues regarding physique?  I have a vague memory of one girl whose legs were deemed to be the wrong shape for ballet as she reached maturity.  

Masquerade at the Wells is probably the book you're thinking of.

8 hours ago, Fonty said:

I wonder if they are catering for people who work from home, and can occasionally take a longer lunch hour.

My local Picturehouse typically starts encore screenings at 1.45pm and they finish around 5pm, depending of course on the length of the piece, so that would be a very long lunch hour! The audience is usually almost all of retired age. While I didn't actually check particularly, I didn't notice anyone other than myself at this afternoon's triple bill encore screening who looked to be under retirement age. (At least I hope I look under retirement age given I'm 38!)

Comparing seeing the 3 pieces on screen to live, I thought Different Drummer was improved by the close ups while the other two I found fairly similar. I didn't find the picture too dark, though it's always a bit darker on screen than live. The sound glitches in Danses Concertantes were still present, making Stravinsky sound rather more avant garde than he intended! After reading the reports on here about Saturday's performance, I watched the Libra Me & In Paradisum trying to work out how they could be performed minus one of the leading male dancers & couldn't work it out.

@alison Oh dear. I've just had a look at the National Rail website & there are trees down on half a dozen lines so I hope whichever your is is one of the ones that has been fixed & services have restarted rather than one of the ones that still has no trains. I'm very glad I only saw ballet at the cinema this afternoon as it doesn't look like I would have made it down this evening.

Gosh, that's unfortunate for Hirano to have to retire injured during his last performance of the season. I hope it's not a different, new injury in addition to the one he's already been nursing.

Oh dear, that sounds rather ominous. I hope everyone is alright.

2 hours ago, Rob S said:

Kevin came out and said Reece was ill this morning and advised not to dance, and the others were swapped out because of that 

I hope he'll recover by next Saturday. Partly for his own sake but also because it'd be tough on Lamb if she had to re-rehearse SL with a third partner.

7 minutes ago, alison said:

Kudos to the whole company tonight for having to perform under some extremely difficult conditions. What professionals!

Are you referring to the Different Drummer cast changes or did something happen during the performance?

I've realised that Donnelly is on the cast list for Requiem so that makes it very unlikely that the cast change is anything to do with him.

In terms of Siegfried not having as much to do as he could, apart from the ending the other part that annoys me is that he doesn't get a solo as part of the Act II pdd. I would much rather he had a solo either just before or just after Odette's & cut out the swans who occupy that space (in fact if I had a free hand with Swan Lake I'd be cutting out a lot of swans in general!). Though I assume that one is down to Tchaikovsky or Petipa or both rather than Scarlett.

8 minutes ago, capybara said:

……. who was Alice when still  ‘only’ a soloist but, IIRC, made such an impression in the role that many would have promoted her to Principal with immediate effect.

I wonder if she would have continued dancing for longer if she had become a Principal? I only ever saw her in one leading role, The Cellist, & a few smaller roles, as she was replaced on a couple of other occasions when I should have seen her in larger roles. I gather she had various injury issues.

20 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Well spotted @Dawnstar- I must say I thought Donnelly being cast as Rothbart last night for Swan Lake was very unexpected because he would be quite worn out after a full length turn as Rothbart (who unusually is in 4 acts plus prologue whereas in other productions he's only in 3 acts, +/- prologue) to be then dancing Drum Major the following night too.

 

Maybe the cast was changed because of this, or maybe it was due to something else.

 

That said, Marcelino Sambe could also be tired out after dancing Siegfried last night- an even more tiring role! - and he's now dancing Woyzeck tonight!

I'd be very surprised if it was due to Donnelly being tired, given as you say Sambe is likely to be more tired! One of the 3 leads being either taken ill or injured seems a more likely reason for a last-minute swap, with the complex partnering requiring all 3 to be swapped. Rather surprisingly the cast changes aren't marked as such on the cast sheet, which is now up. https://static.roh.org.uk/digital/cast-sheets/MacMillan-Celebrated-Cast-Sheet-13-04-24.pdf

O'Sullivan & Takada danced Alice in the last run so will presumably be cast this time too if both have recovered from their current injuries. Choe danced the role in each of the previous runs but will presumably still be on maternity leave, given the run will evidently be early in the season (I doubt it'll get a split run as that only seems to be for the most popular ballets). The only other past Alice I can find listed is Stix-Brunnell.

5 hours ago, Sim said:

Nor do I like the ending (my preference is for them both to die, then reunite in the apotheosis for eternity, as in Dowell's version), although I think I'm getting used to it.  

Unfortunately far from getting used to it I'm the other way round. The ending is irritating me a lot more this time around than during the last run because in the meantime I've seen ENB's production, whose ending (once I got over my initial surprise at Siegfried foillowing Odette off the rock) I much preferred.

3 hours ago, capybara said:

At least, this run, the Siegfrieds don’t seem to be falling away from VR into a terrifying roll forwards which made the audience fear they would end up in the orchestra pit.

I liked the Siegfrieds that did that in the last run. At least it seemed as though he'd been knocked out by Von Rothbart with major force so there was a good reason why he was lying there for ages. When he just collapses gently to the floor at a mere wave of Von Rothbart's wing & lies there for ages I unfortunately feel it makes him look pretty pathetic.

1 hour ago, Linnzi5 said:

I took it that Siegfried was killed by VR and the two swans revived him at the end - they certainly go over to him and wave their arms over him, which I just interpreted as them restoring his life?

Gosh, that had never occurred to me. I just thought they were waking him up to tell him it's all over & he needs to go & fish Odette's dead body out of the lake!

I've just spotted that the ROH website has been changed in the last hour or so to show a complete cast swap for tonight's Different Drummer with Sambe, Hayward & Serrano replacing Ospiova, Clarke & Donnelly.

I'e only seen Alice on video so I do want to see it live but I think once or twice is likely to be sufficient, unless there's lots of extremely tempting casting. There were some scenes that I did not enjoy, and that's the actual content so I won't enjoy them any more live, especially the Duchess, Cook & sausages which I could hardly bear to watch. I wasn't keen on the Mad Hatter's tea pary either, which seems to be a highlight for many people.

I wonder if Cinderella is likely to have a Nutcrackeresque number of performances? If so then I suppose there could be quite a lot of new casts so that might make me want to see more performances. Otherwise then, as I saw 6 casts in 2022, I hope to be able to save some money!

16 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

I didn't - must have been mistaken!

Sleeping Beauty overlapped with Coppelia in 2019/20 so perhaps it's that you're thinking of rather than the Nutcracker?

@Emeralds Thanks but I don't think I want the stress of spending the next 5 days checking for returns when the odds are extremely low, given there are under 20 tickets in the entire auditorium that I'm both prepared to sit in & can afford for SL! I think I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed that Donnelly, and Braendesrod for that matter, appear in more than one SL cast.

I hope Onegin and R&J aren't in too close proximity, and certainly not overlapping, as they are highly likely to be the 2 pieces I will want to see the most casts for.

6 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

So it's very likely (though no guarantees, as injuries/illness/etc can occur) that David Donnelly and Taisuke Nakao will reprise their roles as Rothbart and Benno respectively at the 18th April evening and 27th April matinee performances.

I realise that but the Friday rush for 18th already happened today & it's highly unlikely a suitable return will appear, while 27th matinee isn't a convenient date/time for me. Also given how high the SL ticket prices are I can't keep on buying extra tickets that I haven't budgeted for. (I already added one extra performance last month when Kaneko replaced Cuthbertson.) If fuller casting had been known before the start of the run then I could have had an overall rethink of which casts to prioritise seeing.