Bluebird

Hi John

 

Thanks for the input. I am using Internet Explorer 9 which is the version ROH say you should have.

 

granta

I've been using Google Chrome without problem. I do, however, have Internet Explorer on my computer. I just tried it out. Although the four sided arrow appeared, I wasn't able to drag the map around with it. Maybe it's an IE issue? Are you able to download a different browser such as Google Chrome? It might possibly solve your problem.

Hello

 

Does anyone know how to zoom out further or move the seating map so you can see the whole plan? Every time I try to click on it, the map just zooms in! There should be some sort of arrow control where you can navigate around the map, but if anyone has found a way around this, please let me know! Exasperated!!

 

Many thanks

granta

If you put the mouse pointer onto the white area to the side of the map you'll get a symbol with arrows pointing in all four directions. You can then drag the plan up, down, to the right or to the left. You have to take care to keep the pointer in the white area or you'll find it does start to zoom in or out. If this happens, just click on 'reset map' and start again! Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to see the whole plan at once.

I find the site very slow. It seems to freeze every time I try to do something. I haven't managed to book anything on it yet. Are you supposed to press on the seats you want to book? If so, nothing seems to happen. Maybe I'm just not using the site correctly. Can anyone help?

If you click on the seat you want, it will appear in the panel on the left hand side. Not only will you see the seat number and price but there will be alternating pictures, of the seat and of the view from the seat. If you decide you want it you need to click on 'select' and a button labelled 'add to basket' will then appear. If you click on this the ticket will go into your basket. Good luck!

Ribbons: I'm impressed that your engineer put in a new main entry point - not an option offered to me, I fear.

 

I don't think it's possible to have more than one main entry point. I think whether or not they insist on using the main entry point depends on the engineer you get. When we signed up to Infinity, I assumed we'd have to have the router connected to our main point which is downstairs in our kitchen. My difficulty was that the computer is in an upstairs study.

I called BT and asked how this would work and was told that the engineer would have to install the router at the main point and then provide a cable from there to the computer. This would have involved a cable coming up the stairs and going behind floor to ceiling bookcases in the study. I spent several days reorganising the study to allow for this. When the engineer turned up he said that none of this had been necessary and that he could plug the router into the extension point next to our computer! He was in and out in less than 20 minutes and our connection has so far been fine - around 27 Mbps.

Does choreography for ice skating count? Holst's Planet Suite was the music for several numbers which were choreographed for Torvill and Dean's company of skaters in the mid-eighties. If you scroll down tte Wikipedia page on Torvill and Dean you'll find the details.

http://en.wikipedia....orvill_and_Dean

Am definitely going to get some cheapo binoculars now, to see how I get along with them in July.

Just one more word of advice. Try to get a pair with the widest field possible. In my opinion, the width of the field is almost more important than the magnification. With a narrow field you can only focus on one pair of dancers. With a wider field you can focus on many more.

Binoculars with a wide field don't have to be expensive. Although my 8.2 degrees binoculars cost between £30 and £40, my spare Jessops pair have a field of 7.2 degrees and, when I bought them a couple of years ago, cost around £12.

I've just received the following from Online Booking:

I am writing to confirm that the collect at box office option is still there although the purchase path in the new website is slightly different than before. As long as the performance is more than 10 days away, you are a UK customer and not purchased a student concession ticket, the default delivery option is to have the tickets posted to your billing address; if you want to change this (enter an alternative delivery address or collect at box office) then you just need to click the ‘edit’ link under the delivery address

I've done a dummy purchase and, if you click on 'edit' delivery address, the option to collect at Box Office appears. Presumably they'll eventually find a way of making this process clearer.

Unless booking at the very last minute I've always opted to have tickets posted but now there's no means of indicating a choice, as you have found. I only hope that as a delivery address was given as well as a billing address that the tickets I've just booked will drop through the letterbox next week.

Earlier today I wrote to Online booking about the lack of delivery options (I forgot to mention the empty 'help' page!).

I received the following reply:

"There is a technical error on the website which is causing the issue you describe. The delivery policy has not been changed.

Our digital media team are working on this issue and hopefully it will be resolved soon."

Let's hope they'll be able to sort it out. I always pick my tickets up, partly to save postage but also because I don't like to entrust bulky orders to the post.

I just booked a ticket on the new website. On the old website one could choose to pick up tickets at the Box Office. On the new website this option was not available.

There was a link available for a help page.

http://www.roh.org.uk/help

Interestingly, not only is this help page blank but, at this moment in time, there is nothing to say that it is still in development.

I was thinking more of something the general public might have heard of, such as The Firebird. (I can't remember the makeup of any of the mixed bills next season, so don't know if any of them would have been worth the risk). The only proper mixed bill I've seen at the cinema so far was the POB Diaghilev mixed bill a couple of years ago - and that didn't do that well, either.

 

As for TV, David, you'll get me started on one of my favourite hobbyhorses again . Time was when, if something was recorded at the ROH, it would turn up on the BBC sooner or later. Some of the recent recordings (the MacMillan triple, Manon, R&J, Tales of Beatrix Potter) have indeed done so, yet there are a lot which haven't (La Bayadère, Ondine, Mayerling, Swan Lake, Les Patineurs).

I've just checked the recordings I have from the ROH. All those which have been screened by the BBC have the BBC logo on the insert and accompanying booklet. This doesn't appear on the works which they didn't screen (eg La Bayadère and Mayerling) Interestingly, the disc featuring Les Patineurs, Divertissements and Scènes de Ballet has the BBC logo, presumably because the Divertissements and Scènes come from a BBC screening even though Les Patineurs doesn't..

Nutcracker

 

Casting for Clara/Nutcracker/Drosselmeyer is now on the ROH website.

27/12m

Hamilton, Hinkis, Trzensimiech, Dyer, Marriott

Just had a look at the ROH website and it now has Francesca Hayward as Clara for the December 27 matinée.

I've tried to copy and paste the relevant section below:

Thursday 27 December 2012, 2.00pm

Main Stage

• TBC
  
• Hamilton
  
• Hayward
  
• Trzensimiech
  
• Dyer
  
• Marriott
  
• Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
  

What an opportunity for her!

Does anyone know roughly what the finishing time for this is?

This will obviously depend on the time your performance starts. The running time is supposed to be two and a quarter hours but it usually overruns by a few minutes.

Edited to say that I didn't realise that there was another page to this topic and that the question had already been answered!

On the subject of friends' schemes for young people, I recently tried to purchase a Ballet Buddies membership (under 16s) for my 11 year old daughter. You could not buy it on-line.

Sadly this is a result of the new website they rolled out a little while ago. Until then it was possible to buy all kinds of membership (and book events) online. In fact the organiser of the Friends of ENB told me a while ago that they had gained many new members because of the ease of completing an online application. I assume this facility will return when they have the new website sorted.

Not working at all currently

 

 

"ERROR

 

The requested URL could not be retrieved"

I understand it depends which ISP you're using - see Bangorballetboy's posting above.

Edited to add following quote from ROH twitter feed "Maybe an issue that's affected by the roll out over different ISPs. Just waiting for the internet to 'catch up' as it were ^C"

My ISP has been able to access the site all day. However, although my husband can sign in without problem, I haven't been able to do so. They say this is happening to a number of people and they're investigating.

Well, I've had a quick skim through on today's availability for Fille, and two things strike me immediately:

 

- I can't see how you can move up to the very back of the amphitheatre: there doesn't seem to be any sort of up/down arrow that I can see;

 

 

I had the same problem. I then realised that, if you put the cursor on a white bit of the screen, you can drag the plan of the amphi down so as to get at the back. It's very fiddly though as, if you're not careful, it starts zooming in or out and everything becomes distorted.

Ah. That explains why sometimes we get press photos of dancers who hadn't been performing in the dress rehearsal and had had no previous performances (either together or separately) in the performance.

Aren't there usually two dress rehearsals? One for the 'in house' photographers and a second for the press photographers?

Btw, does anyone know how Artifact Suite differs from Artifact (apart from being shorter, of course). Is the former an excerpt of the latter or is the choreography completely different? I was interested to learn that it was created for Scottish Ballet in 2004.

I think Lynette discusses this in her excellent review which was posted on Dance Tabs earlier today:

http://www.dancetabs...rtifact-london/

Last time ENB were at St Paul's I was lucky enough to be sitting in one of the press seats in the third row of the front nave. Even from there, we could barely see the dancers' legs and feet. I remember people who sat at the sides of the stage, in the transept, reported being able to see better than those of us who were facing the stage. I'm afraid that I don't remember where, in the transept, they were sitting.

Important news for Premium and Supporter Friends and those booking packages for Period 1. A message has just appeared on the ROH website. Here is an extract:

"As we enter a period of transition from the current website to the new one, you will notice some temporary measures we have had to introduce. These measures will apply to Premium 2, Premium 1 and Supporting Friends, and Advance Package Booking for standard Friends on 24 April, but will be removed before standard Friends general booking commences on 12 June.

Until the launch of the new website it will only be possible to purchase Autumn Season tickets using the Best Available option. Once the website is relaunched you will once again be able to select your own seat. The reason for the change is the introduction of a completely new seat map of the main auditorium that will allow wheelchair users to book online for the very first time."

and here is a link to the announcement:

http://www.roh.org.u...f-covent-garden

Didn't Gillian Freeman write the scenarios for MacMillan's Mayerling and Isadora?

Edited to add that I just did a search for MacMillan's scenario writers and came up with the name of Colin Thubron for Prince of the Pagodas

Edited again. Ashton also appears to have used a scenario writer. Here's an example from Wikipedia:

The Wedding Bouquet (1936; scenario Gertrude Stein, choreography Frederick Ashton; costumes and scenery by Berners himself; 27 April 1937, London, Sadler's Wells Theatre)

Of course this is an unusual example as it's the rare case of a ballet with spoken words.

There are probably more to find. Maybe somebody else can take over............

I had to miss Carbon Life as it looked like a late finish again, plus transport problems, please don't tell me it finished 10.30 sharp!

 

It finished a little earlier than of late but, nonetheless, finished after 10.30 - maybe around 10.37?

 

I thought Yasmine Naghdi and James Hay danced beautifully in their pdd,

 

I agree and I'm pleased to say that they seemed much less nervous than they had been on Thursday.

 

 

I was a little disappointed by Yasmine N. I thought that her solo was a bit beyond her.

I think Yasmine was suffering from nerves last night. It was, after all, the first time she had danced such a prominent role in the Main House. Hopefully, by the time of her next performance, she'll have relaxed enough to perform as well as she did at the Friends' General Rehearsal. On that occasion I found her performance, quite simply, breathtaking.

Edited to correct grammar!

By the way, does anyone know what the actual running time of the programme is, please? It was supposed to finish at 10.25 on the first night, but ran 10 minutes late (good job there *was* no orchestra?). Has it actually finished on schedule yet?

The simple answer is, no. As they don't have to worry about paying an orchestra overtime, they have been stretching out the second interval in particular. Last night I would say that we waited a good 5 or 10 minutes after the 'Carbon Life about to start' announcement. I didn't look at my watch but I would say that it finished after 10.40pm last night.

Edited for accuracy

I'm sure Maloney was named in the second cast of Chroma last time round (I think I worked out that it was the Watson role, but could be wrong) - and I thought he danced it, too, although he might have been injured.

 

When I checked the database earlier this afternoon, I only checked Infra and Limen. I just checked Chroma and you're right, Alison. Brian is named in the cast.

http://www.rohcollections.org.uk/performance.aspx?performance=19870&row=17

I'm pretty sure that Brian was in Infra

Just did a search of the performance database. No sign of Brian in Infra - unless he was a last minute replacement and the online castlist wasn't updated.

He is, however, listed as appearing in Limen.

http://www.rohcollections.org.uk/performance.aspx?performance=18453&row=0