Bluebird

The Royal Ballet performed it six or seven years ago...... .......In fact, I've just checked the performance database. It was in a mixed bill in June 2005. I remember enjoying it enormously.

Sadly, even with the £10 offer, they haven't been able to fill the house. This afternoon, not only did they have to close the Balcony, they had to close the Upper Circle as well! What a sad situation.

Just managed to find my programme from that bill: Apollo, Diverts and Raymonda Act III - 7 performances between April 5 and April 26, 2003

As I understand it, Akane Takada is injured and Claire Calvert is replacing her.

I think the Travelzoo offer for best available for £20 (code word ballet) still works for the first two nights. Not sure about the weekend.

Alex isn't listed on the Polyphonia performance page. Might he be the TBC?

There seemed to be a mixture of casts: If memory serves me right, in the foreground were: Itzi and Dawid, Leanne B and Nehemiah, Yuhui and Alex, Beatriz and Tristan. Lots of other dancers behind them but I wasn't watching closely enough to name them all.

I just had a look at the 2012/2013 season announcement: http://www.roh.org.u...allet-and-dance According to that, Liam's 'world première' for the Linbury next May is also to be called Sweet Violets. Has somebody slipped up or is next season's new piece to be an expansion of this season's?

I just tried to transfer a photo using gravatar and ended up with this strange symbol. I have no idea of how to get rid of it. Edited to say that I appear to have succeeded in getting rid of the strange symbol although I'm not sure how I did it!

Just tried to find those pictures, Dave and couldn't find anything that was put in the gallery before July last year. Can you provide a link? Edited to say that I used a different route and found them: http://www.ballet.co.uk/gallery/dm_royal_ballet_live_fire_3bill_roh_0511

As far as I know the other two Apollos are scheduled to be Zdenek Konvalina and Dima Gruzdyev

A word of warning to those wanting to access the ROH website today and tomorrow. Various levels of Friends of Covent Garden will be booking their tickets for period 4 rehearsals so the site will be very busy.

"The new season, to be unveiled on Wednesday, will feature Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur at £65 and a cut-price Tosca" The above quote is lifted from an interview with Tony Hall in today's Independent: http://www.independe...nt-7561659.html No mention of ballet rep in the interview but we don't have long to wait!

Aaron Smyth didn't dance last night. I've just checked their current roster and he doesn't appear on it: http://www.abt.org/e..._co_dancers.asp Presumably he's already left the company.

Overall, the boys were stronger than the girls this year. Some of the audience felt that there were one or two other girls who were good enough to figure amongst the prize winners but it was a really tough job for the judges as there was so much talent on show. ps: apologies to Giorgio for the typo in his name in my original post. Unfortunately, I'm no longer able to edit it.

Results of tonight's finals of the YBDY: 1st Prize: Reece Clarke 2nd Prize: Barnaby Rook Bishop 3rd Prize: James Stephens Sibley Dowell Award for a promising student with potential: Suzan Opperman Commendations: Geiorgio Garrett and Alexander Bird The judges were: Tadeusz Matacz (chairman) Gary Avis, Deanne Bergsma, Wayne Eagling, Kevin O'Hare, Ashley Page and Zenaida Yanowsky. Leanne Benjamin and Jonathan Cope replaced the previously announced coaches for the finalists. The Interlude Performance was given by the ABT Studio Company who are here at the moment as part of an exchange programme with the Royal Ballet School. They treated us to a charming performance of excerpts from Act III of Napoli. In my opinion, the judges must have had a really difficult job this year as all competitors performed well and the overall standard was very high. Congratulations to them all!

The cast change slip said the replacement was due to illness

The estimated time is 2 hours 45 minutes but the performance I went to wasn't much short of 3 hours.

Today is package booking for Friends of Covent Garden

The press release does name some choreographers: "From September 14-23, 2012, the Company will perform three mixed-repertory programs over nine performances, at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, featuring: UK premieres and works by choreographers including George Balanchine, Mark Morris, Christopher Wheeldon, SF Ballet Choreographer in Residence Yuri Possokhov, and SF Ballet Artistic Director & Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson." http://www.sfballet....ur_Announcement

The Box Office told me that it is a charity gala. Unfortunately, I omitted to ask which charity and there's no further information on the LJCC website.

Don't think it is the wrong place. It is 'news' after all! The finalists are (in the order in which they performed this afternoon): Suzan Opperman Royal Ballet School Georgia Ware Royal Ballet School Mica Bradbury Royal Ballet School Isabelle Brouwers English National Ballet School Julia Roscoe Royal Ballet School Estelle Bovay Royal Ballet School Naomi Seaton Royal Ballet School Thomas Edwards Central School of Ballet Alexander Bird Royal Ballet School Giorgio Garrett Royal Ballet School Adam Russell-Jones English National Ballet School Reece Clarke Royal Ballet School James Stephens Royal Ballet School Barnaby Rook Bishop Royal Ballet School Kilian Smith Royal Ballet School William Beagley Young Dancers Academy It's great to see more than one school represented in the final. The finalists are to be coached in the coming week by Laura Morera and Nehemiah Kish. Good luck to them all! The final will take place in the Linbury next Saturday evening. Edited to add that this afternoon's judges were Gary Avis, Deanne Bergsma and Zenaida Yanowsky

Sadly not apparent from where I was sitting. I was in the stalls and, although the centre block was full, I was the only person in my row in the side block. Edited to add that my very good aisle seat in the side block of the stalls was £25 (and not £45), possibly because it was a matinee?

I had a similar problem but found that, if I left the page alone and went to do something else, the payment page eventually came up.

It's past 11.30pm and the waiting room is still in operation. I tried to get on a number of times earlier today and there were always over 600 people ahead of me in the queue. Even now there are around 100 people waiting to get onto the site. I hadn't realised that there were so many Premium 1 Friends!