JNC

Is ENB’s current nutcracker really that bad that it needs re choreographing? For those that have seen it is it vastly different to the Royal’s? One thing I always appreciated about ENB was although they tended to stage fewer works throughout the year than RB, it felt like it got the balance right between new/old/classical/contemporary and always had something a bit unexpected or exciting. I hope this announcement doesn’t indicate a more formulaic repertoire…

I don’t want to criticise ENB given the financial times we’re in but agree with those saying this is disappointing - my word would be underwhelming! I was very pleased to see Skeaping’s Giselle this year but precisely because of financial constraints I’m not tempted to see it again so soon next year, as much as I enjoyed it. I really like Khan’s Giselle but I’ve seen it twice now so equally likely to give this a pass. I can see why this maybe makes more sense to revive as it’s been a couple of years and it does tend to sell very well. I may try and see the Forsythe bill but I have already seen EP/Playlist so it’s not a “must see” for me. I think it depends what the Royal is doing at the same time and balancing my own finances/schedules but doesn’t feel like something I’d go out of my way for (unlike BRB’s La Fille!). And to be honest if finances are so tight I don’t understand the investment in a new Nutcracker. That will sell regardless and I’d rather the money was spent elsewhere to be honest. (Although I appreciate I’m speaking as someone who has never seen ENB Nutcracker.) there are more recent works that they could have repeated that I’d be happy with - either because I haven’t seen them or they have only been repeated once and over a year ago. I mean Raymonda, Mats Ek’s A Rite of Spring - both were works I was looking forward to but I had scheduling clashes meaning I couldn’t see them. It feels a step backwards from previous years where it’s been a nice mix of completely new work (either new creations of things like Balanchine not seen in London before) and revivals (but not so many revivals so soon after a previous season?). Usually there’s at least 2 programmes I’d go out of my way to see and get very excited for but this year it’s barely 1.

this is how I feel about some of the MacMillan triple casting. As I can only see this once live and there are limited performances I would rather have seen principals cast in the main roles for all performances to be honest. The opening cast for MacMillan would probably have been my preference but not living in London I opted for the Saturday performance where to be honest the casting wouldn’t have been what I would have wanted to see. Particularly with younger dancers down the ranks we’re more likely to see them in these pieces again, but now it’s unlikely I’ll ever get a chance to see Marianela and Lauren in those roles again. if there is space for first soloists and soloists if there are a large number of performances it differs slightly but as there are so many principals now it still feels like we don’t see many principals that often anymore.

Sorry a tangent to booking specifically but does this confirm there won’t be a visiting ballet company at ROH this summer? They don’t have anything showing for August at the moment so wondering if there’s scope for an announcement still…? Although as mentioned it will save me money!

Thanks to those who have shared casting it’s very interesting! Pleased for Pantuso and nice to see Calvert making a return in both Swan Lake and Winter’s Tale. Similarly good to see Corrales is hopefully recovered from his injury. I agree Campbell is being criminally under-utilised at this point. The casting for Winter’s Tale looks quite nice and balanced, even for me who is generally “picky” about casting (more down to budget and not living in London now) all casts do look appealing rather than there being a standout cast of my preference. Having said that I (sadly) won’t be attending. The pricing is on a similar par to Swan Lake for the seats I can actually afford (£50 and under and my preference for works I am a bit more uncertain if I’ll like if I haven’t seen them I prefer to stick to £40 and under). This combined with the fact that there are no matinee performances (like MacMillan) means I can’t afford it (or couldn't justify it if I could!). To spend a minimum of about £200 (for a £50 ticket, associated travel and hotels) for a ballet I’m unsure I’ll like, or at least for that amount I’d have to love it, is something I’m not prepared to do. I’m making an effort for MacMillan (and diverting funds into that and Ashton in the Summer) as that interests me far more and the tickets are cheaper at least, and thankfully Ashton has matinees. So overall perhaps I shouldn’t complain as I’d rather a Winter’s Tale had none than Ashton. I may try and go see in the cinema though, I haven’t done a live screening yet so will try and investigate closer to the time.

Is there any hope for seats to be available at public booking? I think I recall they don’t necessarily hold any seats back for general booking in the Linbury. I’d love to see this but it’s probably easier to resign myself to not doing so rather than getting my hopes up. (not helped by the fact I can only do performances on the 7, 8th (possibly 6th) due to not being that local!)

thanks for sharing @capybara My main frustration with this bill is the overall lack of performances and there is only one weekend day, and on top of that no matinees, so for those not in London accommodation costs add up. Annoyingly the weekend casting (Saturday) wouldn’t be my preferred one. I would have liked to have seen the first night casting best as Hayward/Sambe/Campbell sounds an excellent combination. But this is a very personal situation and I’m glad to be seeing all new works for the first time! Ideally if I still lived in London I’d loved to have gone to two performances but alas. Or even if they did a Saturday double show with a matinee and an evening would have been heavenly for me!

I find 3 years to be quite generous and fair, most places it’s about 1 year. Having said that I do think it would be nice if they automatically applied the credit to your basket rather than you having to do so, but I guess that’s maybe a step too far for them…!

Manon Sat 17 Feb 1pm Hayward/Sambe Amphitheatre J45 £49

was the palladium where they had the Nureyev gala? I think I sat in the cheap seats for that and don’t recall any issues with comfort or sight lines (and I dislike the coliseium uppermost level for lack of legroom/comfort).

@Fonty agree - I find the best Albrecht’s are the ones who are a bit of a “playboy” in Act 1 but genuinely remorseful in Act 2. Re Hilarion I agree with @bridiem, whilst I do feel some sympathy (unrequited love is tough) but it seems he’s mainly motivated by jealousy and wanting to control Giselle and force her to marry him by exposing Albrecht. I suppose women didn’t have much agency during that time period so maybe it’s unfair to view with a modern lens but he’s always struck me as a little creepy/possessive and doesn’t care about Giselle’s true happiness. Also the whole sucking up to Giselle mother just feels furthers this and feels manipulative also. Sure it would have all come out at some point but the public shaming of Giselle that Hilarion sets up is just cruel. Therefore I don’t have that much sympathy for him overall and don’t mind the Willi seeing him off (also because it makes for great dramatic tension and dancing!). It does feel unfair Albrecht gets to live on but he could be always unhappy and maybe he’ll go on to do some good things for the peasants out of his love for Giselle. Also Giselle wanted to save him despite his lying to her (maybe his remorse convinced him, or she just loved him anyway). Act 2 is certainly my favourite of the 2 but I like how different yet complimentary they are.

If anyone has a spare SCS for this performance please let me know, I’m in London despite various rail strikes so seizing the opportunity if it arises! Thanks

This is why I really dislike the Coli as a venue. It’s usually fine one level down but the tickets get very expensive (for me) down there but I find the balcony uncomfortable (I’m not that tall and the leg space is dire) and full of heads leaning forward in a domino effect for the reasons mentioned here. There are some parts of row A which not only have the guard rails but also some protruding metal bits (for lighting? Structural?) which means you have a large black rectangle obscuring your view if unlucky enough to sit there, far more restricted than the regular guard rails (bad enough) but the same price…! And isn’t row C much more expensive as well, it should be reduced accordingly as they know heads are in the way here. there must be some sort of modern improvement to the guard rail, but perhaps not I imagine it may be trickier than it appears. I know money probably also would be an issue but then they could charge more for those seats - the view would actually be pretty good without the rails.

@Jan McNulty this is the article I was referring to https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/how-britain-became-a-gerontocracy/ if you’re interested you can also see median financial wealth by age broken down here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/totalwealthingreatbritain/april2018tomarch2020 I’m well aware there are many struggling pensioners and lots of young affluent people with large disposal incomes. I didn’t/don’t want to turn it into a “intergenerational war” and lots of things could be done to improve both the lot of the young and the retired. My overarching point I think is that if we are generalising on age groups the young (on average) are facing incredible costs (rent, housing notably being a very high proportion of income compared to previous generations) and so even though I no longer qualify I’m very supportive of schemes providing discount for 25 or 30 and under! Schemes like Young ROH targeting such broad groups can’t individually means test individuals so they have to just pull from existing data and what they want to achieve (as already mentioned I don’t think Young ROH is just about targeting those likely to have less money but also targeting a younger customer base in the hope they become customers for the next 30/40/50+ years). I won’t comment on this further as I don’t want to take the topic further off track but just wanted to clarify I was by no means trying to say ALL pensioners are wealthier or undeserving and of course every individual will have different circumstances.

Statistically speaking those of pensionable age tend to be better off than younger working people (there is research on this I’m not just assuming). Most people who have retired own their own property outright, and have far more generous company pensions of the defined benefit (eg final salary) than current younger generations will ever have. Combine that with free bus travel etc and the disposable income of pensioners in generally vastly outweighs most younger people apart from those working in incredibly highly paid sectors. Of course there will be outliers and those who are struggling but going off data the younger generation are more in “need” of financial support than older with wages stagnant, rent spiralling, house buying near impossible for security of tenure etc. Also part of the Young ROH scheme isn’t just about supporting the “needy” but also about instilling a love of ballet/opera at a young(er) age to have lifelong “customers”. I agree @TSR101 they could consider increasing the age limit. 40 seems a bit much but up to 30 isn’t unheard of now at other arts/theatre venues (eg wasn’t ENO’s opera scheme with heavily discounted tickets up to 30?).

I also thought ROH tickets were exclusively sold via their website/box office. This is a worrying development if it’s a legitimate partnership. having said that it may actually increase transparency and fairness with how much and how often they discount productions rather than releasing to an exclusive mystery group who’s criteria always changes. On the other hand I do feel bad for Young ROH though who should be first in line for discounts in my opinion, closely followed by Friends. (And I say that as neither a Young ROH nor a Friend but because it’s important to access these things when you’re young and - stereotypically - have less disposable income, and as for Friends they do support ROH so they deserve a bit of priority here). I wonder why ROH are choosing to utilise TodayTix - are sales really that poor? Surely they need to do more effective PR (highlighting no booking fees if booked directly with ROH!) if that’s the case, rather than gouging customers with inflated prices so TodayTix can take a cut for their “free” promotion via their platform. This further erodes the special something ROH has (used to have?) compared to other West End venues. It’s history and having “Royal” in the name, and having tickets only sold directly had an air of prestige and exclusive (without being exclusionary as anyone can buy on the website).

If you contact the box office straight away you may be able to get a refund. When I accidentally booked two tickets for one performance once I got in touch near immediately when I received the confirmations and they had flexibility to refund me due to how quickly I’d got in touch and it being a sort of obvious error. Although if it’s SCS I’m sure someone on the forum will gratefully receive!

It seems the later you book the ticket the longer the email takes to come through - probably a backlog. My first email came through 10 mins after but the second 20 minutes later!

exactly this. If I consistently knew that it was going to be ok it’s one thing; but every booking period seems to come with a set of different problems for different people so you can never be sure. I appreciate they’re dealing with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bookings. But even when I’ve booked for more popular shows on the west end with thousands of people in a queue everything went far more smoothly. The queue was consistently updated to show roughly where you were (how many people in front) and what time you expected to wait. Once in you could browse a variety of dates and go back and forth to compare performances (either by back or opening new tabs that recognised you had already queued). I can’t remember how quickly I got a confirmation email but the confirmation page and entire process reassured me that the booking had gone smoothly and successfully. At ROH despite the 3+ (?) years of this system you never know what you’ll end up with - sometimes I’m in straightaway with no issues, other times major issues - and it’s that uncertainty that is massively stressful and time wasting. I’m sorry but for a major international venue with this capacity and foresight on when they will expect peak demand on booking days it’s not really acceptable to fail consistently the way they do - other theatres can manage it! I also add the waiting screen for many other venues is quite similar which leads me to believe they are using the same software/company? I don’t see why ROH can’t just use an existing off the shelf programme that seems to work so well for others. If it’s not possible due to the specific requirements of ROH why haven’t they contracted this company? I appreciate lots of assumptions here (maybe they did contact that company!) but it seems in building a fully bespoke website/programme it’s just led to various issues with various patch jobs causing more/other new issues… my final edit is as far as I can remember there were never issues (at least on this scale) with the old reliable website which I still prefer for being simple in design and much easier to navigate and view particularly on a phone. I still dislike the overly large design of the current website and it feels it has too many “flashy” bells and whistles that I’d not want, certainly at the expense of a functioning clear website!

@RHowarth sorry to hear you had issues too. You should be ok - it took around 15 minutes for my SL confirmation to come through, still waiting on MacMillan but plenty of seats available there so less stressful if something has occurred as I can buy another very similar ticket I think. absolutely rubbish that years after implementation this system still doesn’t work properly. I never have these issues with any other booking sites (eg Coliseium, other theatres for highly anticipated shows that place me in queues for booking etc). I may write in and complain, it seems churlish but without feedback how will they even know to look for and “fix” these issues (little hope they actually will resolve it though, given the system is so terrible I imagine the best option is to scrap and start all over again at enormous cost). @Sim unfortunately not I think I just wanted to checkout as quickly as possible to ensure I did have the ticket secured by which time your confirmation screen doesn’t show the details I believe! Also whilst calling the box office is still very much a necessity, the website should be fully functioning especially for those that don’t live in the uk who don’t have this option (or it would cost them a fortune to do an overseas call). I’m currently not in the Uk right now so calling isn’t an option for me at the moment. At this point I’m on wasting 40 minutes now waiting for my MacMillan confirmation to come through…when if the system worked I’d have been done in well under 10 minutes, perhaps even five, all to book two tickets for two performances and then go straight into my account to see them nicely sitting there!

On a separate note I see there is no casting at all for the MacMillan bill - is this “normal”? And does anyone have any indication of whether this means we can expect the same cast for all performances? it doesn’t matter so much for me as being non-London there’s only one performance I can do (Saturday evening, Friday involves taking leave to travel down…, both involve hotel costs so why no matinee…!) but just curious if anyone has any knowledge or suspicions on this!

Something very odd happening to me right now with spring booking - I have successfully managed to secure one seat for one performance of swan lake (at least I hope I have, no email confirmation or ticket showing in my account yet but payment taken…) anyway what’s odd and didn’t ever happen to me previously is usually once you’re “in” you can search for more performances - in my case I wanted to buy one more ticket for the MacMillan bill - and add them to the basket without having to queue again. When I found the MacMillan page and clicked the date I wanted to book casts I was put in a digital queue with a 26 minute wait time. I panicked and thought this might meant I’d lost or would lose the Swan Lake ticket given the wait but luckily managed to retrieve that and checkout (at least I hope I have), but I’m still in a queue for MacMillan. Did anyone else experience this? in future do I have to open multiple tabs and go through clicking each performance I want as quickly as possible to book simultaneously?? This is a real pain and definitely a disadvantage and huge waste of time for multiple performance bookers, surely it must be some sort of error or glitch and I’ve been unlucky today? I’m now worried my swan lake ticket hasn’t properly gone through as I had to click “back” and things like that to retrieve the basket as the system was showing my basket empty in one tab and “full” in another which shouldn’t be happening as it’s all the same account… If it’s not gone through well I won’t be going to see swan lake, I only wanted one date and the ticket pricing was so ridiculous for the seats at the back of the amphi anyway. Very cross at having 20 minutes of time wasted just booking 2 measly rickets! Edit - have now received email confirmation for the SL ticket at least but still annoyed at waiting another 20 minutes all over again to access a MacMillan ticket…

I’ll await the full season announcement to come probably not for a few months still (May?) but I sense this sets the tone for the rest. I hope I’m proved wrong (although would love to save some money) but getting fed up of RB preaching about no money then investing in big three act works that aren’t even ballet (or at least certainly not classical)! Surely they could cut costs by doing a year of purely revivals. Of course you have to invest in new work but I would like to think the minimum requirement is that it’s ballet…

Really looking forward to seeing this and reading reviews. for some reason I don’t really connect to RB’s Giselle and wondered if it was me; I loved Paris Opera Ballet’s Giselle (yes I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to see this in Paris) which I found interesting given on the face of it the productions are relatively similar. But I preferred the costumes, the mood of Act 2 felt more scary (Giselle and the Willis looking more pale and “dead” then with red lipstick on etc) and it just felt like it told the story more effectively. So I’m hoping I’m going to very much enjoy the Skeaping version due to its authenticity etc.

I’m not sure but I see him as a better fit for emerging choreographer type role rather than MacGregor’s role. RB is missing a Forsythe or Manuel Legris type of choreographer.