Dawnstar

I'm surprised to read that. I always assume ballet performances will have a live orchestra, unless it says it won't. Is it more modern dance rather than ballet that is often done to pre-recorded music? I agree with you about the casting notice.

There must be some general scope for using music for different characters though because in Wheeldon's Cinderella the Prince appeared in disguise Act I. I can't recall what music he appeared to but (unless Wheeldon inserted music from elsewhere) it must have been music that in Ashton's version is used for other characters. There was also a scene set at the palace with the King, Queen, Prince & his friend Benjamin which I think also happened during Act I (though I could be misremembering) so again that must have used music intended for other characters. Not that I'm expecting anyone to re-choreograph Ashton to add more Prince.

If that's the case then I should enjoy the Nureyev quarter of the programme, I'm unlikely to like the Tanowitz, and I've never seen anything by Possokhov or Topp. Hmm, maybe I should have held off booking after all! Has anyone seen the RBS at Holland Park since the auditorium was reconfigured? If so do they use the new stage extension round the orchestra pit or only the main stage? I'm thinking about booking & my ticket choice would be different depending on whether or not the stage extension will be used.

Mercifully not for the cheapest stalls circle seats, which are £3 cheaper than for Cinderella. Still awfully expensive mind! I managed to get everything I wanted except Laura Morera's last performance, which probably unsurprisingly didn't have any of the cheapest stalls circle seats left. I'll have to hope I can get a Friday rush ticket for it. I see for the Australian Ballet performances the stalls circle seats that would usually be Friday rush tickets are already on sale so presumably they're not doing Friday rush for those performances. I had debated about leaving booking for their Gala until the programme was announced but decided I'd therefore better book immediately.

Thanks. I don't know the choreography well enough to be certain what was different, I just got the vague impression that some of it was. I suppose in McRae's case he might change some things to try to protect his past injuries.

I find my heart rate goes up whenever I'm booking tickets, even if it's somewhere which I know isn't going to sell quickly. I think it's a Pavlovian reaction after wards of booking for places like the ROH where it is stressful. I was very relieved that this morning's Opera Holland Park booking went very smoothly for me, as their Inspire tickets always sell out very quickly. I'm sure that would drive me mad if I was booking at any of those venues on a regular basis but the one time I went to the opera in Munich it worked beautifully for me. When the tickets arrived we weren't actually certain where we would be sitting, as I'd never been to a German theatre & my mother hadn't been to one for about 40 years. So it was an extremely pleasant surprise to get there & find we were in the second row of the stalls, and for about half the price it would have been at the ROH at the time.

Ah, I didn't think of that, though I had read the review. I saw Wicked many times when it was first in the West End 2007-8 so I do like both, but I can't say I thought of Wicked at all when seeing Cinderella.

Oops, I forgot to metion @ToThePointe or your daughter in my previous post.

The usher said to the couple that he'd speak to the woman but I don't know if he did as I left the auditorium then & didn't return until just before Act II. If he did speak to her then it clearly had absolutely no effect!

One young woman I overheard commenting after the evening performance certainly didn't seem to be expecting what she got: I heard her say that she was baffled by it & had been expecting something like Wicked!!

While this pales in comparison to the ghastly behaviour in the news recently, at yesterday's matinee I saw the most selfish example of leaning that I've ever seen. I was sitting in stalls circle C24 so in an area where leaning is often a problem. Just before Act I started I noticed that the woman sitting directly in front of me in row B was leaning really far forwards, not just the slight lean that often happens but so far that if her head had been a bit lower she could have rested her chin on the seat of the row A seat. As the lights dimmed & Koen Kessels entered the woman next to her on the right said something to the leaning woman, evidently asking her not to lean forward. But the woman leaning refused to stop & continued to lean as far forward as she could throughout the act. The poor woman next to her must have barely been able to see a thing, especially as the leaning woman had very thick hair that stuck out a lot. I wasn't at all surprised that as soon as the act had finished, and the leaning woman promptly exited, that the husband of the woman whose view was blocked, whose own view must also have been compromised, went & got an usher to complain to. I was so sorry for them that once they'd explained the situation to the usher I chipped in & backed them up as to how badly the woman was leaning. The usher suggested they went to speak to the FOH managed & ask if they could be moved. When I came back for the start of Act II their seats were empty & looking round the auditorium I spotted they had been moved to the previously empty Royal box. I hope they had a much better Acts II & III. Meanwhile the leaning woman took advantage of the couple's absence to spread herself out into their space & continued to lean a long way forward for the rest of the performance. I can only devoutly hope that I never find myself next to her in the future! I should have also said that those row B seats are £112 for Cinderella. That's a heck of a lot of money to pay even for the standard view restriction in that area, in my opinion, let alone to then have your view considerably more restricted by a leaner.

I was rather surprised last night that for me there wasn't that much difference between the female stepsisters & the male pairs I'd previously seen. I thought I'd find them very different but with the costumes, head pieces & make-up all the Stepsisters looked almost the same to me - and no, I wasn't sitting right at the back of the Amphi! On the male Stepsister front, I do tend to get Acri & Hay mixed up anyway but playing the same Stepssiter they looked absolutely identical to me. If the cast sheet hadn't said Hay yesterday matinee I would have put him down as Acri. I'm a bit late to say much else about yesterday, as I think both performances have been covered, so just to say that I thought both Sarah Lamb & Francesca Hayward were excellent Cinderellas & I thought both were rather more naturally suited to the role in terms of projecting pathos & vulnerability than Nunez, fabulous dancer though she is. Can anyone more expert than me confirm if all the Princes are dancing exactly the same solo? I thought McRae & Campbell's solos looked slightly different to Muntagirov's at one point near the end but I'm not sure if it's just a right turner vs left turner thing. I was very pleased to catch Liam Boswell as the Jester at the matinee, as I wanted to see him in the role. Having commented after the first performance I saw that the Jester was a bit more sinister than I had expected, I thought Boswell played it a less sinisterly than Nakao. In the livestreamed Insight Annette Buvoli was being rehearsed as the Fairy Godmother. It was Amelia Townsend who was being rehearsed as Autum. She doesn't seem to have danced the role yet though. No need to apologise. I had a for me incredibly sociable day yesterday. I met up with @Blossom at the matinee & bumped into @Rob S and met up with @Sim @Scheherezade & @JohnS at the evening performance. Then when stage dooring I not only spoke to a number of dancers but also an opera singer, who'd been in rehearsals, & I ended up having quite a long chat with Sarah Lamb's husband while waiting for her to appear. For someone who does 99% of her theatregoing alone, that's far more people than I usually speak to!

I was very impressed during the performance at Annette Buvoli moving from Fairy Godmother to Autumn & back to Fairy Godmother. I was even more impressed when I spoke to her at the stage door afterwards & she said she hasn't learnt the role of Autumn, she's only due to be dancing Winter! She said it's fortunate both are on the same side. I would never have guessed it: she looked flawless to my admittedly inexpert eyes. I will never cease to be amazed at the no-notice jump-ins performers manage to do. I hope Leticia Dias isn't too badly hurt.

In my case I'm very keen to see it because I've not seen it live. From the clips I've seen & what I've read about it it looks like a lovely romantic comedy, which is my favourite genre across most artforms. I'd also like to see more Ashton in general & Fille looked until recently one of his more likely pieces to be revived by the RB.

Thank you both very much. My bank account is currently looking far from healthy so I'm trying to work out how many of the productions I would like to be able to book for I can actually afford to book later this week!

A depressing comment on the state of your trains that making it to a performance is considered a bonus! I certainly don't envy you travelling so far. I find an hour long train journey stressful enough on occasion - such as this past Wednesday when the train decided to be 20 mins late. At least my train today is running to time. Also I swear TfL is deliberately making it rain every time I go down to London so I have to pay to use the tube rather than walking for free!

Many theatre companies do use social media to engage with their audiences though. Evidently the ROH doesn't, which I think is a pity.

I replied to their post saying I hope they'll be reviving Fille soon. Not that I have any hope they'll read my comment. I comment quite often on their Twitter posts but never get so much as a "like" for acknowledgement, let alone a reply.

@Emeralds This is the only relevant tweet I've seen.

I confess I didn't notice any lights in the auditorium at the start of last night's performance. Given everyone else seems to have found them very distracting I can't think how on earth I failed to notice them!

Thank you @bridiem. I thought they might have hoicked the prices up, given modern pieces usually are cheaper than more classical ones. Pleased to hear that they haven't.

No, I wasn't hurt thanks. I thought I had made it to the top of the stairs so tried to step forward only to find I was still one step down, so I fell forwards onto my hands & knees. I had been so busy trying to tell my mother about the performance that I hadn't noticed I was a step short. At least I've only ever done a few months of ballet, aged about 7, so I'm not expected to have any balletic elegance.

May I ask is anyone who has booking that has already opened is able to indicate if the prices for Jewels are the same or different to those advertised for Kunstkamer? When I look at the seating plan on the ROH's website it shows me all the different coloured dots but no key for what price each colour is.

I see this has now been moved to 3pm, so more theatre performances will be affected. Time changed so it won't disrupt some football. Typical of this country that football is considered more important than theatre! https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/governments-national-emergency-alert-test_58706.html

Given the vital moments in Swan Lake - the vision of Odette in Act III & her death in Act IV - that aren't visible from the far sides of the auditorium, I won't be surprised if I find on Monday that I can't see Cinderella's entrance from the same seating area either. I accept that things will be missed from the far sides of the auditorium but considering the view restrictions the recent pricing decisions for those seats are rather hard to take. Your mention of the clock reminds me: if I recall correctly there were some mentions after one of the first performances that the clock on the palace facade seemed to stay at ten to midnight. So last night I kept an eye on the clock every so often and saw it at quarter to, ten to, five to and then just before midnight. So perhaps it didn't work properly at the previous performance. I guess as it's a fairytale I was expecting something a bit more comedic from a jester. I should have thought more about how Grimm fairytales can be!