Dawnstar

I wish I didn't want to see as much of the rep! It would be much easier that way, rather than wanting to see everything (apart from the Dante Project) and the majority of it with several different casts but not being able to afford to see as many casts as I want to.

Yes, I just looked at Rob's list & thought "Are there are many as 17 Don Q performances?!" as I'd thought there were 7 casts with all but one cast having 2 performances each but evidently there are more than I thought.

@Sophoife I'm afraid I'm not on Instagram (I used to be but it kicked me out) so I can't see stories.

I noticed yesterday that the BroadwayWorld review also had "Bernet" rather than "Bemet". I wonder whether it's multiple critics misreading the cast sheet or that they're all using spelling correction software but not then checking the corrections!

As ENB tweeted about the triple bill yesterday I tried asking them when the casting for that will be released. I had a reply saying "We expect to have casting at the end of this month." so that'll be less than 4 weeks before those performances start.

Thanks. I'm not going again so I suppose it shouldn't matter to me but it does irk me when estimated run times are so far out. Last night I only just made my train & then had to stand because it was heaving (due to the previous one not running with the overtime ban). The stressful journey home rather spoilt what should have been a nice evening. If I'd known beforehand that it wasn't going to finish until nearly ten past ten then I could have arranged to catch a later train.

I ended up seeing 8 Mayerlings last season, going back for a second viewing of two casts including the Muntagirov one. However I'm still at the stage where many ballets are relatively new to me, having previously only seen Mayerling the once live & once at the cinema in 2018. I can understand that some people - though obviously not @JohnS! - having seen many of the RB's repertoire for many years are not wanting to see as many performances now. Unfortunately I have not yet got to the stage, and can only regret that I started regular ballet-going shortly before what seems to be exactly the wrong time for price rises.

I thought a couple of the soloists in Emeralds reappeared in Diamonds so it's nice to have that confirmed. By the way, I'd be interested to hear from anyone going tonight if the running time manages to be anywhere near the 2h17 given on the cast sheet. Last night it finished over 20 minutes late.

Since there's no sign of any casting for the triple bill starting in 7 weeks I'm not holding out hope of getting casting any earlier under the new AD than previously.

When Chynoweth came onstage I did think "I was expecting him to be taller!", having seen him in a promo video clip the ROH tweeted the other day.

I was quite surprised that the scenery for Diamonds was different to the RB's but the costumes were the same. I would have expected either both to be the same or both different. As I've not seen the RB's Emeralds or Rubies I don't know if that is the case for those parts too. Last night was the first time I've seen the first two parts of Jewels live. I think I liked Diamonds the most, then Emeralds, then Rubies. Out of the dancers, all bar Joseph Caley unknown to me, I particularly liked the performances of Sharni Spencer and Callum Linnane in Emeralds and Benedicte Bemet alongside Caley in Diamonds. I agree it would have been nice to have casting information for more of the roles, especially as I imagine the majority of the audience was not familiar with the company. My curtain call photos last night didn't come out very well but as no-one else has posted any (yet) these are a few of the less unsuccessful ones:

I've heard from someone I know who was booking to see the RB's Nutcracker for the first time. I'm not sure if he's ever been to the ROH before but he certainly hasn't for a long time & he had to create an account before booking. Yet he got the exceeding ticket limit message when trying to book a single ticket from a newly created account! What is up with the ROH's website?! Fortunately he's an extremely experienced theatre ticket booker in general & I'd warned him there might be problems so he persisted & was able to book after a bit. It's hardly encouraging to new audiences in general though if first time bookers can get those errors.

I'd say my booking is similar to last season but there was a significant shift between last season and the season prior to that, due to the abolition of package booking & the price rises last season. Since last season all I have been able to afford have been the cheapest stalls circle side bench seats. Before that I was able to treat myself to one set of better seats with the package booking then do additional performances from the cheaper seats. So with the interruptions of covid, I basically got 2 and a half RB seasons where I was able to occasionally enjoy decent views before being banished to restricted views in perpetuity! Or until even the restricted view seats get so expensive that I can't go at all. Other than that, I might have booked 2 rather than 1 Nutcracker performances if the full lead casting had been announced. I may add another performance nearer the time using Friday rush, and ditto for Don Q as one cast I want to see was already sold out of the cheapest side stalls circle seats. In previous seasons I might have gone up a price band but not now.

I quite agree. I know there are invite-only performances and that Friends get access to performances the general public do not - i.e. the Friends Rehearsals - but it does not seem very fair that a performance that was initially advertised as being open to the general public has suddenly been turned into an invite-and-Friends-only performance mere hours before public booking was due to open. PS Hope your trains oblige this afternoon. I've had to switch to a stopping train to Liverpool Street after I discovered half an hour before leaving home that the fast train to Kings Cross I was intending to get had been cancelled. (I'm going to a matinee first - the trains aren't yet quite bad enough for it to take 7 hours to get from Cambridgeshire to the ROH!)

I've finally managed to book the single Nutcracker I wanted. Adding the ticket to my basket before signing in seemed to work for getting round the exceeded ticket limit message. (I also worked out that the only way I could have exceeded the ticket limit would be if they'd counted every Nutcracker I've ever seen at the ROH including the 2 performances that were cancelled in 2021, as they add up to 8!)

I've just gone back in to have one more look in case any tickets have reappeared, only to encounter the ticket limit announcement for the first time. Ironically it's not for Don Q, which I booked a couple of tickets for half an hour ago, but for The Nutcracker, a production I have not yet booked any tickets for this coming season!

Well that was cheaper than I was expecting, since by the time I got onto the website 2 of the 6 performances I had hoped to book didn't have any of the seats I was after available. I must say I wasn't expecting the Kaneko/Bracewell Don Q to be the cast I wouldn't be able to get a ticket for. I'll have to hope I'm able to get a rush ticket.

My queue time seems to have stablised at 23 minutes, after spending the first couple of minutes jumping around from anything between 1 to 35 minutes. I imagine by the time I get to the front of the queue there are unlikely to be many if any seats available for the performances I'm after, given the intersection between seats I can afford to sit in & seats I am prepared to sit in is less than 10 tickets per performance. At this rate I may be spending a lot of Fridays this autumn praying I can get rush tickets.

Oh great, I was intending to book for that performance. Since there are only 2 performances for that cast, and the other one is the half term Saturday matinee, it is not exactly helpful of the ROH to make that performance unavailable only the evening before public booking opens. Maybe I will have to only see that cast at the cinema then.

I've had an email from the ROH asking me to "take a short survey" about Carlos At 50. It was an extremely short survey: only 2 questions. The first question was "How likely would you be to recommend the performance" which seems a rather silly questions as given the short run has concluded what would be the point in recommending it to anyone - unless Acosta is planning to do a Carlos At 51, 52, 53, etc.!

Tomorrow evening will be my first time seeing Jewels live too. In full that is, I saw the RB's Diamonds last year.

You may be the only person who will appreciate my dismay when I realised that the World Championship men's road race is on Sunday & I'm booked for Australian Ballet's gala!

Yes so relative to that price then £49 for Manon seems reasonable, given the MacMillans are usually less expensive than the classics. However those same seats were £58 for Mayerling last season so relative to that £63 seems more likely.

I can't decide whether to hope the side stalls circle bench seats are £49 or fear that they're £63....

Oh yes, she's on my want to see again list too. In fact I fear that if Manon has the casts I am expecting it to I'm going to want to see all bar one or two of them, which is not going to be possible!