Dawnstar

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who couldn't tell the Fates apart. It didn't help that I was unable to get hold of a cast sheet until the first interval but even when I found out who they were, and that they were all dancers who I should be able to recognise as I've seen them all in solo roles in the past, I still couldn't tell who was who.

After queuing for so long beforehand that I was getting twitchy about being late (though I'm sure the "performance starts in x minutes" warnings weren't actually accurate), in the two intervals after seeing how long the queues were for the stalls loos I went up a couple of levels & found some loos with no queues. I seem to recall I've done the same in the past too.

Oh yes, I was unpleasantly surprised on Friday how many latecomers were let in and for how long. There were still people coming in when the Prince in disguise arrived at Cinderella's house, which must be at least 20 minutes in. With the in the round staging it's even more distracting than in a normal proscenium theatre. I also saw a few people going out during the performance, which with the dancers using the audience entrances made me worry in case they got tangled up! As with ENB's January Coliseum performances, the presence of popcorn came as an unpleasant surprise. It feels like I'm never going to be able to see ENB without the unpleasant smell of popcorn in the air! Does the RAH now have popcorn for all performances? What about the Proms?! @Emeralds That's nice of you to say but right now I feel devoid of anything useful to say!

She tweeted a few days ago that she was rehearsing for one of Roberto Bolle's Italian shows so perhaps she's been allowed to do that rather than dance in Japan. I guess she wouldn't have been allowed to do Juliet even if she was there, as I understand the Japanese promoters want Principals in the lead roles, so I can imagine dancing in Italy might appeal more than going all the way to Japan to only dance minor roles.

I enjoyed the view more yesterday. I'm not sure the show itself was either any better or worse than in 2019. (I think I preferred Hawes's Cinderella to Takahashi's but that's just personal preference.) I did, I think, watch the show differently yesterday because I was watching it in the light of having seen 6 performance's of Ashton's Cinderella in April, whereas in 2019 I'd never seen any ballet version of Cinderella before. I think Ashton is better choreographically overall but I do like Wheeldon's use of some of the Act I music to provide back story & to allow the Prince to appear rather than Stepsisters overkill. I also like the score much more now than I did when I first heard it. I'm not going to do a review, as @Emeralds reviewed the same cast much better than I could, but the highlight for me was, probably unsurprisingly, Frola's Act II solo, especially the manege. While I'm not massively keen on the in the round staging as a whole, all that space does give the men a lot of jumping room! He didn't just do the usual jetes either but interspersed a jump I don't know the name of which I think I've only seen done as a stand-alone jump before, not as part of a manege.

I've just spotted this cast sheet photo on Twitter, as Gary Avis retweeted the linked tweet. Very interesting casting for For Four. I know it's changed due to injury but it still must be pretty good that Liam Boswell is cast in a role like that, alongside much higher-ranked dancers, when he's still only an Artist. Surely he must be in line for promotion.

As no-one else has posted any curtain call photos in this thread, a few from last night with Erina Takahashi as Cinderella, Francesco Gabriele Frola as Prince Guillaume, Rhys Antoni Yeomans as Benjamin, Emily Suzuki as Edwina and Julia Conway as Clementine. I'm sorry the dimensions are all over the place but I had to crop bits of corps members out of some of them (see previous post)!

Digging out my ticket from 2019 (in my programme for Manon, wish ENB would revive that) it was section G row 7 seat 7 so almost as far to the side as you could get. However I have a feeling that I was allowed to shuffle along a bit for Acts 2 & 3 as there were quite a few empty seats. I definitely preferred my view this time from section J row 2 seat 48. I had very few issues with the dancers blocking my view, only the odd moment in Act II, until it came to the curtain calls when the corps lined up round the edge of the area & made it impossible for me to get any decent curtain call photos while they were standing there. So most of my curtain call photos feature the backs of heads & shoulders of the corps!

Try Googling: Like Water For Chocolate New York Times. I was able to read it that way whereas when clicking directly on the link in today's Links I hit the paywall.

@Emeralds Last time I was well round to the side. It's hard to remember 4 years on what the view was like for every scene but my curtain call photos have a lot of profiles or backs of heads, so I thought I'd go for central this time. I'm also hoping the view of the projections will be better. I must have missed a lot of them last time as when I saw the livestream of the proscenium version from Munich last year there were far more projections than I remembered & some parts of the narrative made rather more sense as a result.

Just when I'd been feeling pleased at being able to get a central 2nd row stalls seat for tonight...!

I use both options & haven't found it makes a difference. Last week I did the going via the Friday Rush page option & it worked fine.

A continuation of the previous cast change so Prigent presumably hasn't recovered from whatever he's suffering from.

I've got Carlos on 27th so I really hope they don't add any more strike dates. As it is, Nozze will be the 5th performance in just over a year that I've been unable to get to due to strikes, and 3 of the 4 previous ones were unrearrangable.

I have no issue with guide dogs at theatres because I know they have been extremely well trained so I do not have to worry about them jumping up/pawing/licking etc. I remain deeply impressed by the guide dog I once saw sitting through a performance of Tippett's King Priam without making a noise, when that music made me want to howl! However comfort/emotional support dogs will not have necessarily been trained in the same way & therefore may not be as well behaved.

Drat, I'd got a ROH Nozze di Figaro booked on 20th July so bang goes that. The far sides of the stalls circle are in use for this production so I'd managed to get a ticket for only £27. Now there's nothing available under £69 for the other dates & I don't want to pay that much so I guess I won't be seeing it at all.

I'm pretty nervous around dogs too, due to having OCD, so I too was pleased it wasn't too near me as I would have likewise not been able to concentrate on the performance if it was near enough that there was a risk of it touching me. It's all very well a dog being comforting to its owner but that doesn't take into consideration other audience members who are made uncomfortable by it!

Not sure about the lapdog effectiveness. Earlier this season I spotted a woman in the main auditorium with a lapdog!

Most of them by @Rob S I see. He should think about turning professional!

Looking at the cast sheets, are the excerpts from Don Quixote and Two Pigeons the only really classical works being performed? Is The Four Seasons classical? I've just had another email from Holland Park encouraging me to book but if they're not doing Konservatoriet & most of the programme is modern then I'm not sure I want to go. (I wish I'd realised sooner that they were performing the same programme in the Linbury, as that's so much more convenient for me to get to than Holland Park.)

I've had a look at the autumn booking productions and I can get seat maps for all the operas (quite pleased by the pricing for L'Elisir & Rigoletto, thank goodness I don't want to see Rheingold) and for most of the ballets but I'm only getting a blank for Don Q. Also The Nutcracker seat map is dated 9th December 1pm which isn't the most helpful as that's the Christmas Treat performance that the general public can't book so I don't know if it has the same prices as the normal performances.

Many thanks to @PeterS for showing me an offer I hadn't found myself so I'll be going to the ball after all! Going on Friday, as that's the same cast as tonight & it's a bit too last minute for tonight.

The Sisters seem to be cast with the taller dancer as the bossier one & the shorter dancer as the shyer one but I feel like the other way around would be the better fit for Campbell & Muntagirov.

I've been looking at tickets for tonight's performance for the last few days but the stalls haven't gone below £72 & there's nothing on TodayTix. Given I was so-so on the production when I saw it in 2019 (for somewhere in the £45 region) I don't want to pay as much as £72 so it looks like I'll be giving it a miss this time around.

Much Ado is my favourite Shakespeare play so I'd defiinitely be up for a ballet version. Though I'd want it to stick fairly closely to the play's plot, as I found Berlioz's operatic version disappointing because it ditched half the plot. I'd be very happy with Morera, Campbell & Muntagirov but I think I'd go for Hayward as Hero. Whitehead as Don John, Saunders as Leonato. I'm still thinking for Dogberry....