Richard LH

Maybe, although I am rather concerned she is not now dancing "Within The Golden Hour" tomorrow night either...

No longer...that is the point, unfortunately. She wasn't ever dancing tonight.

Sambe is still there in Flight Pattern. Let's hope Akane is OK for the later performances.....

Medusa looks quite mind-blowing! Elsewhere there are some pretty amazing ballet and dance pictures on Alastair Muir's site....

Boy. Sorry, back to the thread...

Yep not much help for the pattern makers....

Re guessing the future..Boy or Girl (royal baby is now officially on the way)....

Well spotted Lizbie...I think it must be.

The 13th most common British surname is Walker, apparently. I am slightly at a loose end today....

She seems to be a confident young lady with an engaging stage presence. One to watch for the future, I suspect... Would she be related to Mariko Sasaki I wonder, or is this a common Japanese name? EDIT OK Wikipedia tells me it is the 13th most common Japanese surname....

Another RB joiner via Prix de Lausanne... https://www.prixdelausanne.org/winners/shuailun-wu/

John your last remark is particularly moving. Do you find OC row H easy to book? Seats there rarely seem available when I look...

The Takada / Hirano Insight has been advertised from the outset as a special event for Japanese speakers.

I certainly find it convenient and speedy just to click the Pay Pal option where my card details are already stored within my Pay Pal account. EDIT Thanks to Bluebird's post ......it seems WorldPay requires you to enter card details each time.

You can now bookmark filter choices which is helpful. Alison would it help if you paid for your ROH tickets using the Pay Pal option?

I have just received an email from the ROH which indicates they are making changes to address many of the issues that have been raised, including better filters, smaller images for less scrolling, and better information about casting and about past events. Hopefully goods news.....

In which case I must put in a vote for Mendelssohn and The Dream. Fairy magic.....

Yes, particularly in the RB's version!

Lizbie I wonder if you have tried a live cinema performance to get an idea of expressions closer up?

That's right; it isn't like Kitri's entrance in Don Q , for example, which is very much a "Ta-Da" moment!

I have only seen Cuthbertson in the 2012 DVD but I don't think she particularly plays these moments for laughs. I just think there are some moments of light relief for Juliet (whoever plays her) to which the audience will inevitably respond, notwithstanding the generally awkward, or indeed excruciating, circumstances she finds herself in. For example at the very end of Juliet's first scene where she realises what her nurse is pointing out, or later in Act 1 when she mimes that she is too tired to go for a walk with Paris just after a clandestine dance with Romeo. The bedclothes moment also comes across as funny, even though we really know it is a desperate and futile attempt to escape from the pressure in the room that Juliet is getting from her parents, Paris, and even her nurse. Takada also got some chuckles at this point, despite her displaying Juliet's agonies so powerfully in the rest of the scene. Regarding audience reaction, Saturday night's crowd seemed particularly in tune with the performance. I liked the way there was no applause at the end of Juliet's fake death scene, when silence seemed the appropriate mark of respect, and again at the end of the her real death scene, when we were all pretty well stunned into silence until the very last drop of the curtain, after which Takada, Hirano, and later Hay in particular, received all the applause they deserved. For some reason the house lights went on before their bows in front of the curtain, but I thought that was nice, because it meant they they could easily see the enthusiastic response of the audience and the standing ovations that some of us gave.

They were fine with this in the evening. Joseph Sissens replaced Benjamin Ella (a change which was suitably announced pre curtain up).

Akane Takada sensational tonight....!

I think conferring objective greatness is another matter, and is certainly beyond me....how can it be measured? We all have our own subjective views of music and ballet scores. For me the best ballets are where the score and the dancing work wonderfully together, so as to regard the two as inter-dependent, rather than independent. So for example I really enjoy listening to Minkus scores (and others, whether compilations or not) simply because they evoke, and I can recall and visualise, the particular dancing to which they relate. I am not sure that even the Tchaikovsky pieces would be so well thought of if they had no relationship to their ballets. Various beautiful compilations wouldn't exist as coherent musical works at all, if they had not been brought together for the ballet.