JNC

The photos of Fumi and Will are glorious! Thanks for posting and reading reviews the performance sounded as good as I would expect (ie incredible). I’m sorry they weren’t originally cast together as I would have booked, I only hope they are cast together next time as they would be my “one to watch” then. (I’m also hoping for them to be cast together in Manon next time…)

@Roberta surely if Australian ballet can sell in ROH NYCB would have no issue? They are a bigger “name” for sure.

It may have been Nunez’s preference to dance slower but my personal preference is to go a bit faster regardless!

I would also like to see Coppelia return. I agree it’s odd Frankie and Cesar haven’t been partnered much recently - their R&J was fab. I believe they were both meant to debut in swan lake together but that performance was cancelled due to the pandemic. I feel they would be very interesting together in Manon, Mayerling as well as Swan Lake. Giselle too!

I missed this/ or forgot the information as we had a whole interval before that. In any case lots of people in the second circle moved to the doors for a drink/toilet break so it could probably do with repeating!

same - at least in ROH they have QR codes, SW didn’t seem to be even advertising those. will also say though that SW did a better pre performance speech about how the light from phones can be distracting for audience members around you so please don’t use them etc. unlike ROH’s generic announcement. However they were less good at communicating the “pause” between DC and Gustave pieces - the curtain went down and lights didn’t go fully up but we’re on enough for people to start getting up thinking it was an interval. Ushers sent them back to their seats at the doors but still led to unnecessary disruption - they could have easily put something on the tannoy either before DC started or when it ended.

my inexpert opinion was in parts of Odille’s act 2 solo danced by Nunez there were points were I felt she was holding herself back from going a bit faster because she was trying to stick to the music, I think in one of the slower turns it looked to me like she almost physically stopped herself from naturally taking the next step and having to pause and drag the movement out. It would be a pure assumption as I would like to hope that Kessels and the dancers have a conversation about this in advance or there is an agreed set tempo for all but I feel dancers would prefer this faster as it would be easier/flow better. Not the same ballet I recall once Naghdi saying something about one of the shade variations in Bayadere being trickier than it looked because it’s so slow so your technique is really tested. My guess would therefore be it would be “easier” and more natural for dancers to take this at a bit of a faster pace and it also helps build better flow and pacing in the plot as well. Didn’t see last night’s performance but glad Cesar has made a return to the stage. I can’t speak to chemistry in these particular roles but I remember thinking Magri and Corrales worked really well together in Coppelia many years ago…

I wholeheartedly agree with this. While I didn’t hate the work, it is certainly not Balanchine level. Balanchine was a genius, innovator, even in the abstract it felt his work had meaning and some sort of story/plot/point. This was a series of unconnected vignettes, and while the dancers attacked it vigorously the fact there is no real “successor” to Balanchine, and seeing ballet evolve more toward “street” / hip-hop/contemporary dance is a real shame. I wouldn’t mind the odd cross collaboration but if this is what “ballet” is now I agree it’s a glum state of affairs. Ballet can’t and shouldn’t be stuck in the past to be relevant (although personally I might not mind only seeing work pre 1980!) but the fact there aren’t really any exciting/genius pure “ballet” choreographers of our generation like Balanchine, Ashton, MacMillan etc is disheartening. Forsythe maybe comes close (?) but he’s in his Autumn years and I’m not sure he’s on the same level as those names personally.

I think it does matter in terms of revenue, deciding future programming (something not a “sellout” unlikely to return in this financial climate), morale for dancers (not dancing to an enthusiastic sold out venue - although given we’re in darkness and they’ll do their best regardless this probably matters less). Of course cinema live streams and DVDs are important but the ROH is fundamentally about live performances. (Also if this hasn’t sold so well I imagine they’ll reconsider a DVD release as would there really be a huge market for it / enough money made on it?) ROH revenue I think I read once before means that only about 50% of their required income comes from ticket sales - the rest has to be made from philanthropy, government funding and other avenues. So if they make (even more) of a loss on a non sold out performance for an entire programme (as opposed to an odd one here or there) that all adds up and will cut into margins.

@art_enthusiast yes if RB don’t announce any Balanchine for their 2024/2025 season I don’t think we’ll see any of his work in the UK until late 2025 at the earliest. Given ENB aren’t doing any of his work next year either. (Unless we have a touring company from elsewhere again like Aus ballet with Jewels last summer.) And I think the last Robbins was well over a year ago now (?) and whilst I like Dances at a Gathering would like to see other works!

Thanks for the info @Bruce Wall i actually liked the Gustave costumes and thought they worked well (though imagine novelty might have worn off if the piece was longer). The Abraham ones were not to my taste at all! I suppose they didn’t get in the way at least but didn’t add anything either. Would love to see more Tiler Peck (both dancing and choreographing) in the UK - I saw she is also sitting out this tour due to injury on her instagram.

agree the “lift” (not a lift but hold?) photo actually looks awkward and bad. The others are not exciting. First photo could be ok but I feel the angle is a bit wrong and given they’re both wearing black they sort of blend into each other… Clearly it’s not selling well if they have only six performances and each has 100+ tickets left only a week and a bit out. It’s also being live cinema streamed (interesting given the Ashton triple I don’t believe was?) and so the advertising should be focusing on non-London for cinema audiences too. I’m invested in this selling well as I would like to see more of MacMillan’s one acts and I feel if it was better marketed it would have had more interest.

I can’t add much to comments (but I will sorry). I wholeheartedly agree with everything fantastic that has been said about Marianela and Vadim. Absolute artists, at the top of their game, just flawless in both technique and character. Vadim’s jumps and landings are weightless, it’s like he suspends gravity. And Marianela…well she’s so exciting and just so beautiful to watch her command the stage. the company is so strong right now, Act 2 the swans were just brilliant in formation and the four cygnets were the most synchronised I’ve ever seen. My small quibble would be I feel parts of Act 2 and 4 felt to be played at a slower tempo than I’d personally like (I’m thinking Nunez’s solo and parts of the swans coming on after that - not sure if this is the dancers’ preference or Kessel’s conducting or the decision or someone like O’Hare). Also I know this may be controversial but I find Act 1 a little boring in choreography. Act 3 is fantastic, all the national dances are fab and I love all the drama! (My other quibble is I’m not a big fan of all the black swans coming on stage for such a short period - it raises more questions than answers for me and it distracts me from the drama of the plot and Vadim going off desperately!). I’m also not a big fan of the ending (Prince carrying the princess swan back in human form - I’d prefer him left devastated alone or both dying) and maybe I’m imagining this but I feel a bit of dry ice for the opening of Act 2 would help with the drama as the stage floor looks quite bare. And if I’m being really picky I didn’t love the bows after the Act 2 pas de deux - they were incredibly well deserved but it broke the flow and spell of the plot for me. Hypocritically though I had no issue with them in Act 3 but I feel it’s perhaps because it’s a showier piece and in the plot they’re dancing to a crowd anyway. (I know I’m being super picky here though.) Anyway I’m so glad I saw it, I had booked for Nunez last run but due to her illness I missed out so this certainly lived up to and exceeded expectations. I feel both Marianela and Vadim keep really pushing themselves to improve and it’s just so wonderful to see them both dance - they do have a great partnership also, great dance chemistry. Fantastic appreciation and respect for them both. How lucky we are to have them both in London/the Uk and the company really is on top form all round at every level.

yes this was very distracting! I wondered if I just hadn’t noticed this before but I would have remembered it so definitely a lighting issue!

The standout was the dancers and the company tonight - so glad this has sold well and hope they’ll return (with a hopefully stronger more Balanchine programme) in a year or two! Rotunda was fine. Watchable but not wow. It did feel very much like a bit of Balanchine, a bit of Robbins but like a compromise it didn’t deliver either style excellently (I like the description that Peck is the love child of Balanchine and Robbins @LACAD, this is the first Peck I’ve seen but if this is his style it’s a very good description). I was hoping for something stronger as I feel Peck is a choreographer I would like (similar to Forsythe in that I sense he is truer to neoclassical ballet than others out there now). Passable, and at points enjoyable but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see this again. I had high hopes for Duo Concertant as I love Balanchine but also knew going in from descriptions it was not perhaps his strongest work and something that would blow me away. This was correct. If anything this was the biggest disappointment of the evening for me - mainly because it is Balanchine and I expected more (whereas with the others I didn’t know what to expect/expected less). It felt such a shame not to do something like Tarantella (if they wanted a shorter duet) or obviously something more “wow”/special that we haven’t seen in London for years like Seranade, Ballo della Regina (works I haven’t seen but from clips and descriptions I know I’d love more than this). Gustave le Gray No. 1 for me was the best piece of the evening. I love Pam Tanowitz (I know she gets mixed thoughts on here but I find her super creative). I found Secret Things fell flat but Everyone Keeps Me I find intriguing and I actually really loved Dispatch Duet. The costumes despite being a bit billowy worked really well with the movements and actually added to the choreography, and it all felt actually quite innovative (I like Tanowitz as she always seems to try to do something different). I felt the piano being moved was a bit of an unnecessary distraction but this was the one work that held my attention throughout. as for Abraham’s work I had low expectations as I found the Weathering incredibly boring (the only work of his I’ve seen). This was better than that but to be honest it started to drag a bit and yes the costumes were hideous (I felt I could live with the shape but the ruffles and the pattern were just off). I agree the lights felt a bit tacky. I did enjoy some of the pieces and the dancers excelled here (I thought if only they brought a Balanchine and applied this style!!) and despite not loving it it was interesting in parts and better than the Weathering (I don’t remember that at all) and the recent MacGregor I’ve seen (Untitled). I did wonder whether the music was Blake as it reminded me a lot of Forsythe’s Blake works. I personally prefer more classical music allows the musicality of the dancers and the choreography to tell more of a story/fits together better. This was barely passable to me and I didn’t dislike it but again wouldn’t see it again particularly unless it was part of a programme of things I really wanted to see. To be fair I felt the different pieces showed a different mix of the current styles/choreographers of NYCB. It was a very enjoyable evening all round and I’m glad I saw the company. I would certainly like to see NYCB again in London with more Balanchine/Robbins, to be honest given I don’t live in London if they brought a similar type of programme I’m not sure I’d bother to see it given I’ve seen this now and it was good but not “wow”. Having said that I’d say it’s miles better than anything contemporary I’ve seen at ROH recently (like the MacGregor last year etc). Perhaps now we won’t have a Russian company at the ROH in summer for the foreseeable we could get NYCB and maybe ABT guesting there. Similar to Aus ballet they could do a short visit, perhaps a more contemporary programme like this and then a pure Balanchine (and Robbins) one as well. I’d also be interested in seeing Vienna Ballet and maybe Dutch/Danish ballets but that’s a topic for another thread!

But not many for Sarasota as @Bruce Wall suggests. Best to be realistic that I won’t be getting a ticket for this perhaps! on a separate note (I didn’t want to create a new thread for it) does anyone know when we can expect the 2024/2025 season announcement? Last year it was 26 April so presumably thereabouts but I wonder if anyone has confirmed a date yet?

Presumably they’ll have the same issue with enticing people to the cinema live streams as well… A few years back I remember thinking they also did a terrible job promoting La Bayadere. It was just a sort of blurry/long exposure picture of a bunch of dancers standing in a group of white tutus. No photos of the majestic shades scene, or the other dramatic costumes or plot. I didn’t book initially but then did my own research and found out the shades scene was meant to be among the best in classical ballet and I’m so glad I went. But they could have sold it so much better to people who know Swan Lake, Giselle etc…

I agree with this. Why aren’t there more photos on the website page for it? It’s just one picture of leotards that doesn’t tell me much, and it’s only even for one ballet out of three. There’s one brief paragraph of background with each ballet getting one sentence. There’s a lot of “ballet insider” information in there as well - name checking de Valois and Cranko and so to someone new/unfamiliar with ballet it’s probably not really helpful information to be honest. I would have focussed on MacMillan as a choreographer and perhaps the music used (classical etc) and perhaps the number of dancers and types of formations etc (the type of wording you might see more in a review in the paper for example). The titles of the works themselves also don’t really tell you much (with the exception of requiem perhaps). It’s all too abstract - if you know you know and if you don’t well go off and research it yourself! Not great. But ultimately I think more photos or a short video clip embedded into the webpage would communicate and sell this better. At the moment if you don’t know MacMillan or haven’t seen the ballets before there’s nothing that would make you book. And to be honest, how many people are going to go and search for more information themselves? You lose a lot of people by this way, and the people who would do this are more likely to be interested and would have booked anyway to give it a go. to be honest I have only booked because I enjoyed MacMillan’s concerto and for the “novelty” of seeing works I haven’t seen before in ROH. But honestly I have no idea if I’ll like these pieces or no idea of what to expect at all really given the information is so limited. As I’ve booked I’m happy to go in “blind” and hope for the best but if I was trying to sell this to friends, or I was someone with no ballet knowledge I would really struggle to take the risk and pay out.

I think I last saw Hay in Cinderella as the stepsister. He gave a great performance but not necessarily what I wanted to see from him! Before that I can’t remember the last time I saw him (cast) in a proper principal role but I don’t attend ROH as much as I used to… The principal who I preferred as a first soloist is O’Sullivan. I didn’t want to name initially as I didn’t want to be too critical but I do find the diverging opinions on here really interesting (as yes on some level it’s all subjective and personal preference) so here goes! obviously my opinion and I do think her technique and performances at first soloist justified a promotion and so I wasn’t surprised at all. But for whatever reason her performances as principal just haven’t clicked with me at all. I didn’t feel a connection to her Odile/Odette and while her Aurora was pretty much technically perfect for some reason the character just didn’t work for me (I know aurora doesn’t have much character compared to say Manon but I like to see her youthful exuberance in act 1 etc and Hayward and Nunez capture this well for me). To be fair to her I saw her debuts so I appreciate she will grow and develop in these roles the more she performs. But in the meantime with limited funds I’m prioritising other principals for now. Regardless of my preferences I do very much think she’s dancing at principal level, it’s more just she doesn’t connect with me in roles the way she used to bring a special sparkle to the first soloist roles for me. On the flip side Magri was someone who whilst I appreciate was a good solid first soloist didn’t really do it for me for whatever reason. But I sense she is really growing and developing as a principal which is interesting to see, and I’m growing increasingly tempted to book for her more often as she often impresses me when I see her. And Kaneko is someone who was a fantastic first soloist and continues to amaze and impress me as a principal! Unfortunately I couldn’t see her as Manon this run and still kicking myself for missing her Juliet due to a date clash but hopefully next time!

interesting and thanks for sharing. Seems a shame to cut something that is “unique” to this production, I would have been very interested to see it!

I’m of the perhaps controversial opinion that if anything there are perhaps too many principals now. this leads to current principles being under-utilised, and or very long runs of the same production so every principal can have their go (whilst still not casting certain principals ahead of first soloists or others ironically!). I do appreciate long runs may not be driven by this alone but it does seem like everyone has to have their go at swan lake unlike what for example Paris Opera Ballet do which is having more limited principals in a certain production and each principal tends to dance a few more performances as well. And of course another way of solving this could be solved by having more diverse repertoire with shows running overlapping in some dates (eg a contemporary mix against a classical or balancing a large company set piece against something requiring much fewer dancers). I don’t think it should be a “race” to become a principal and personally in my untechnical inexpert view I don’t think there is anyone ready to be a principal right now. That’s not to say they don’t have talent and potential and shouldn’t still be cast in principal level/style roles (this seems to be happening already anyway) but my preferred dancers seem to be the ones that have the most experience and so I think you generally only get better with time. also interestingly I found I preferred some dancers as first soloists rather than principals as I saw them more but also found I preferred them in first soloists type roles, and the occasional principal role that felt it was suited/tailored to them. There’s one first soloist who I always made a point of seeing and then they were promoted to principal. I then found I didn’t enjoy them as much in some principal roles and now don’t tend to book for them as there are other principals I prefer and find to be more balanced across the repertoire. If I had unlimited money and time I’d happily see everyone but unfortunately that’s not the case, and I miss seeing my favourite first soloists in the same production as my favourite principals. (Selfish I know and regardless of my thoughts the promotion I thought was well deserved.) Of course you need to balance all this against motivating the younger ranks and giving them interesting casting opportunities but I think that is already happening. (But again sometimes at the expense of principals/first soloists who we don’t see for months, again could be solved by diversifying the repertoire.)

before you used to be able to book multiple productions through the same tab by going back to the search function etc. i found last time I got put in a new queue (!) when I tried to do this, so the queues seem to apply for each booking rather than covering your account/browser (if that makes any sense at all). This was incredibly stressful and really threw me off and added 30 minutes to my booking (and all I wanted was to book two performances!). so despite what people are saying about using only one tab I am going to take the approach of multiple tabs this time, as one tab only really didn’t work for me last time. (and if anyone asks my preferred approach is one tab only to be honest but I can’t afford to be in multiple queues one after another. Perhaps I was unlucky or there was an error or issue last time but I don’t want to risk it again!)

I’m no longer a friend (for many reasons, personal finances particularly when balanced against seat price increases, a bit of a protest against seat price increases and also the lack of diverse repertoire). But I was a friend for two reasons - advance booking and supporting the Royal Ballet. I would be very frustrated if I didn’t have casting available when I booked as I would feel that would negate a big part of my membership. I do sympathise with ROH here though, we don’t know what’s going on (there may well be personal and private reasons why they can’t explain why casting isn’t finalised yet, dancers are people with personal lives too). But I think it’s a fair compromise here to negate any ticket swap fees (this may be logistically challenging to administer perhaps, I feel the website might not be able to manage it and manual phone refunds seems an administrative nightmare), OR perhaps they could acknowledge the frustration by giving Friends some other sweetener (maybe a free programme and champagne for example, I would have suggested a month or two of free membership but logistically I imagine that’s near impossible to coordinate administratively). Ultimately we are fortunate to have casting available (usually) at time of booking so I’d be willing to cut them some slack on this. My only concern would be if many people didn’t mind they might start making it a regular thing! (But given the number of people who seem to have written in to voice frustrations over this I doubt it’s gone ignored!)

Gosh this booking will be more stressful than usual…! I’m glad they are keeping some back but yes given the size of the Linbury it still doesn’t inspire much hope! Thanks for the info though.

I can see why it’s fair that Friends do get priority as that’s what they pay for and support ROH (in turn in some way supporting us to all see ROH). (If it’s relevant I speak as someone who used to be a Friend but is no longer.) what I do have a problem with, if this is in fact the case as the information around this is murky, is that there is a chance that all seats will be sold out before the general public gets a chance to get tickets. For main stage performances they do have to keep some tickets back (or at least they did in the past) but this seems unclear for the Linbury. I would love to be proved wrong and be able to select a ticket for a Friday or Saturday performance when general booking opens but I am realistic this probably won’t be the case! I don’t think it’s really relevant what events you have or haven’t attended previously frankly - you could either be a hardcore Ashton fan or someone merely interested in something new, for me it’s about trying to make it as fair as possible for everyone to get tickets with the understanding that it’s also reasonable for paying friends to get first priority (but in my view unreasonable for paying friends to be able to buy all tickets available, hopefully that won’t be the case!). I also know if you keep an eye on returns a day or two before it’s likely people would be able to pick something up, but don’t live in London this isn’t much consolation to me.