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Dawnstar

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Everything posted by Dawnstar

  1. I have not read the entire report, and can't face doing so. The Times had an article about it a few days ago https://t.co/lY1SpHRCRc If I may repeat what I said on Twitter after I read it, the ninth paragraph makes me want to weep. I'm already seeing considerably less opera than I used to because many modern productions are too modern for me but now the Arts Council wants companies to reinterpret operas even more. I despair.
  2. Maybe it would help if, from where I sit, I could actually see Odette's spirit rising up. Or for that matter see her killing herself, or see more of Von Rothbart's demise than the end of one wing tip draped over the rock!
  3. The last rumours I heard on opera Twitter was that it was going to be scrapped but then got reprieved. I suppose we'll only know for certain when/if it reappears. Fingers crossed...
  4. I'm wondering because the most moved I've been by SL was when I saw ENB's production with Salenko & Frola last season. I don't know if the ending of that, with them being united in death, may have helped. Or if it was due to the performers. Or what.
  5. Can the RB production be transcendent given the downbeat ending? I feel it might be easier for productions that end either with both being united in death or both surviving.
  6. I probably should have given myself a longer gap than a week between my last Manon & first SL. Originally I wasn't going to start on SLs until April but with the cast change I decided I'd like to see Kaneko & Bracewell together in full, having seen them do the Act II pdd at the Ukraine gala 2 years ago, and last night was the most convenient of their dates for me. I'm seeing the MacMillan triple bill on 27th so wouldn't want to see their performance on 28th and on 1st April I'm hoping to see Nunez/Muntagirov (rush permitting) & don't want to do 2 SLs in a day because I tried that in the last run & felt very swanned-out! Is that the one that the Wiener Stattsballett perform? If so then, having seen it on video, I'm afraid I wasn't very keen on that ending either. I'm even worse: the white acts/scenes are my least favourite parts of every ballet I've seen that have them, with the exception of the snowflakes in The Nutcracker which I do like (maybe it helps that that's quite a short scene!). I could happily lose some of the corps dancing in SL Acts II & IV, Bayadere Shades, SB Act II, Giselle Act II, Don Q Kingdom of the Dryads, etc. and just have the sections that move the plot forward & the main solos, e.g. I'd be fine if SL Act IV started at Odette's entrance.
  7. I evidently have a bit of an emotional blank spot when it comes to Swan Lake. I thought last night's performance was extremely well performed but I was never really moved by it. To be honest, I would have been significantly more moved if the same cast had for some reason had to swap to performing Manon at the last minute! Every cast of Manon I saw in the last 2 months had me in tears at least once per performance, some multiple times, whereas last night I never felt like crying. Admittedly I'm not sure the last part of Act IV in this production helps much from an emotional point of view. I find the lack of use of Siegfried particularly problematic. Him being knocked out easily by Von Rothbart & just lying on stage for ages doesn't really work for me. I think I actually prefer Kaneko as Odile to Odette, perhaps because I expect her to be naturally very well-suited to Odette whereas it feels like she shouldn't be as naturally good as Odile as she actually is, if that makes any sense. Act III was, as usual, my favourite act. I do wish the audience wouldn't start applauding & cheering in the middle of the fouettes though, it makes it feel like a circus act rather than an art form. I thought Dixon gave a very good Benno debut without being exceptional. Which to be fair is how I felt about most of the Bennos I saw in the last run. Only Jun from a technical point of view & Richardson from an acting point of view managed to be exceptional for me. (Does anyone know if Richardson is doing Benno this run? I had rather hoped he would be on last night, given he appeared with Bracewell in the last run, but obviously not.) It's useful that the cast sheets are now crediting all the dancers in the Czardas & Mazurka, unlike the last run, so I'm not longer trying to identify who's who under the rather disguising head-dresses & hats! I was pleased to see Bailey in the Neopolitan last night, alongside Zuchetti. I think she did do it in the last run but I didn't see her. Could anyone identify the Von Rothbart double last night? My best guess was Dubreuil but I'm far from sure. During last night's performance I thought that it's a pity that Kaneko probably won't get filmed as Odette/Odile in the near-ish future, given that both her Siegfrieds have both already been filmed in this production.
  8. I would have liked to see Monaghan but I'd already booked for the Thursday to see Cojocaru before the rest of the casting was announced so as Kurihara & Monaghan are only dancing on the Wednesday then that's a no go, as I think SB 2 nights running would be too much.
  9. The Culture Whisper atricle in today's links previewing the Sadler's Wells run says that Cojocaru will be partnered by Maslen. Checking BRB's website, the casting has been amended on there. Presumably Dingman is injured?
  10. Tonight's cast list has finally appeared. Leo Dixon's Benno debut, I think? https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/43/swan-lake-by-liam-scarlett/cast-list/54701
  11. If anyone else is coming into London via Liverpool Street this evening then there's potential delays due to overhead wire problems at Hackney Downs. https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-disruptions/hackney-downs-20240315/ I'm hoping that giving myself an hour and a quarter between when my train should get into Liverpool Street & curtain up time will be sufficient....
  12. Ah, I was assuming they'd be dancing together, with her in some smaller role that casting hasn't been announced for, but I guess 2 solos from different pieces would make more sense.
  13. The cast sheet has Melissa Hamilton & Marcelino Sambe as the dancers so I'm guessing that means its likely to be Different Drummer being rehearsed? https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/43/insights-the-royal-ballet-in-rehearsal/cast-list/58600
  14. I thought "immersive" in a theatre production sense usually referred to including the audience in the production in some way, not to the production including water! It rather feels like the ROH may be using the word because it's currently fashionable rather than because it accurately describes the production style.
  15. Query for @JohnS or anyone else who's seen Fliegende Hollander, is the production really "immersive"? None of the reviews I've read have indicated that it is so I'm puzzled by this ROH tweet.
  16. I thought it was a pity Whitehead only got to do 2 performances of Monsieur GM. He only did 2 performances as the Gaoler too. I know he did one of the Clients & the Old Gentleman as well but it still felt like he was rather under-used in the two larger character roles, which was particularly surprising given there were only 3 available GMs. (Looking back at the 2019 casting, performances were a lot more evenly spread with 4 GMs getting 3 or 4 performances apiece.)
  17. I see the ROH website currently has this notice up.
  18. Unfortunately it feels as though it's a pretty bad time for anyone trying to get into opera at the moment, at least if they're someone who would like to see attractive productions. I agree with your recommentation of Chenier, not least because it's the only attractive & traditional opera production remaining in this season that @JennyTaylor hasn't already tried. (At least, I suppose the new Carmen could be but I'd be amazed if it was!) I've seen a few duff ones but not many & those tended to be just rather grey & dull. Whereas this season they seem to be bizarre. I had tickets for last autumn's tour but after reading the reviews I didn't go. (A modern-dress Cenerentola set in a museum with the characters in glass cases & Cinderella not ending up with the Prince? No thank you.) So this time I decided not to book until I read the reviews - and then I didn't book! I can only think it's the choice of the new AD, though I guess the endless appeasement of the Arts Council by "relevance" & suchlike could be involved.
  19. Have you read the reviews for ETO's new productions? Manon Lescaut sounds pretty terrible & The Rake's Progress not that great either so I don't think I'd recommend either to someone just starting to explore opera, and especially not someone who has just been watching the lovely RB Manon production. Unfortunately with their new AD ETO's production style seems to be changing significantly, and in a direction that I personally do not want to see. I've been seeing ETO since 2005 but not this season. I saw it from the amphitheatre in 2004 then from behind a pillar in the stalls circle in 2009, which was the last run before it got scrapped. I think it's such a pity they got rid of it, and ditto the Schelsinger Contes d'Hoffmann, which lasted until 2016.
  20. While I agree on the listening & reading as a general principle, I think sometimes operas can get you immediately. That certainly happened to me the first time I saw Der Rosenkavalier, which was also the first time I visited the ROH. I absolutely adored it immediately. I then did a lot of listening & reading afterwards. It's still my favourite opera. Though I was extremely lucky that that was back in 2004 when the ROH still had the gorgeous, period Schlesinger production. I often wonder if I would still have loved opera if I had started going now, 20 years later, when there are so few beautiful opera productions left. I'd say a few times a year is extremely good going. I might get that once a year nowadays if I'm lucky, given how few productions there are on that I want to see. This season there are only 3 operas I wanted to see at the ROH. My attempt to see L'Elisir D'Amore was knocked out by a train strike, I saw Cav & Pag, and I intend to see Andrea Chenier. Trying videos is a good idea, not least because if you're not enjoying something you can stop part-way through without feeling as guilty as leaving a live performance! There's the ROH stream but from what I can see that doesn't really have that many performances & they're mostly fairly recent ones. I'd suggest trying the Metropolitan Opera which has a huge back-catalogue available to stream on subscription. During the lockdowns they showed an opera a day for free & I reckon I must have watched well over 100 performances, filmed over several decades, and that was only part of their catalogue. You could watch an Aida actually that's set in Ancient Egypt, rather than in North Korea!
  21. @JennyTaylor I started regularly operagoing in 2004 but I've never really got on with either Butterfly or Boheme. In both of them I find some of the music glorious but the leading characters annoying. So it may be that you don't click with those particular operas either. Tosca is my favourite Puccini opera, partly because it's one of his few operas where the lead tenor character is actually a decent person. 2) There are some directors who like to put in loads of extraneous stage business so it's not always static, it really depends on the production. The pieces you've seen so far are all tragedies & it's often comedies which have more stage business. A pity the ROH aren't doing something like La Fille du Regiment this season or I'd suggest you tried that for an example of a pretty busy production. I suppose fundamentally opera being more static comes down to ballet being all about expression through movement whereas expression through singing is easier for the singers if they can stand still. 3) I flipping well hope not given the ROH employs a full time chorus so I'd be amazed if they cut any choruses! I'd say that Puccini was a composer who tended to using choruses fairly sparingly. Tosca Act I only (apart from offstage), though I do find that one very effective as long as you've got a Scarpia who can make himself heard properly over it. Butterfly's Humming Chorus is very well-known but I confess I personally find it a little dull. Boheme I feel the chorus in Act II is more about peopling the stage than having an amazing musical impact, though that might just be me. 4) Again, this varies considerably by production. The 3 Puccini productions you've seen are 3 of the ROH's most traditional productions at present. Personally I prefer more traditional opera productions, and therefore have seen a lot less opera in recent seasons as the ROH have replaced more traditional productions of many rep pieces with more modern ones, but many people prefer the modern ones. The current Don Giovanni production for instance uses loads of projections rather than literal scenery. 5) I think most people feel that way about Pinkerton. I've seen the tenor be pantomime booed at the curtain call before, at Opera Holland Park.
  22. I'm potentially interested in seeing it as Sadler's Wells but am I right in thinking that the casting is unlikely to be announced until quite near to the performances?
  23. I can only think that I am less discerning than @capybara about movement because I found all the Des Grieuxs I saw (six live plus Clarke at the cinema) to be very moving in the Act II Scene I solo. I couldn't pick just three of them. I feel we've been very spoilt by Des Grieuxs this run (though admittedly I did skip seeing the two who I didn't think would do it for me). My mother asked me after Friday's performance who my favourite leads had been in this run and while, after some thought, I said that Lamb just edged it for me among the Manons, I couldn't even begin to try to select a favourite Des Grieux.
  24. I pretty much didn't look away from them. I was riveted by the drama going on between Manon & GM. It was completely different not only from the other GMs & their Manons but also from Avis with the other Manons he's appeared opposite. Hayward's Manon was unhappy & withdrawing from GM far earlier in the scene than any other Manon. Avis's GM was exasperated & not understanding her behaviour. Just before her solo it felt like he was saying "You don't want to play with me? So what do you want to do? Dance?" Even the diamond bracelet only seemed to make her happy for a minute. Afterwards I felt like I should apologise to the Gentlemen & Courtesans, whose dancing I barely noticed, and Campbell, given I should really have been focusing on him. Further to the discussions a few days ago about the Beggar Chief, Lescaut & GM's watch, it was interesting to see last night that Zuchetti not only watched the Beggar Chief picking GM's pocket but immediately afterwards they had a short conversation. Which I felt indicated that they were plotting something together about the watch so the giving it back to GM & getting money in return could have been pre-planned. It also looked like the lucky Beggar Chief might have got 2 coins off GM this time, as there was the sound of one hitting the stage but it also looked like Masciari caught one!
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