art_enthusiast

Interesting. I’m really eager to see Diop live: I had to miss Fille unfortunately due to timings. I’m hoping to make it to Paquita in December or Onegin in February. Does anyone know when casting might be announced?

You mean BRB’s Fille? I’m curious to know, what are the other Ashton full lengths aside from Cinderella and Fille? I’ve only seen what the RB has performed from 2022 onwards

I loved it. I hope they do similar pieces in the future. Very good heritage piece for Birmingham.

I watched this on the Stream recently. Absolutely stunning and it's a shame they aren't both doing it again, as I would have loved to see them both live. I agree the blond doesn't look that great, and much prefer her natural hair colour, but I don't think it really detracted from her beautiful performance.

Not in this case though, as no one knew the casting before booking, not even Friends.

I do have to agree a bit there, it’s seems rather sneaky! Especially as they must have decided right before public booking opened. At least there were no issues with getting casting for the Winter’s Tale. I managed to get 2 different casts for each Ashton bill by booking blindly, but not necessarily the ones I wanted to see the most (plus one of the same Rhapsody casts I saw in 2022). I haven’t changed my booking yet as the seat I want isn’t available for my preferred cast option. Could anyone let me know what to expect from the Five Brahms piece? Looking forward to see Osipova performing it, I’ve never seen it before.

I got my ticket a while ago. I've forgotten exactly what the excerpt in the Carlos gala was like. However, really looking forward to seeing it hopefully with some BRB dancers as well.

I guess so. Only when you're already forking out the top prices for Swan Lake it seems a bit presumptuous.

Definitely, it's sneaky how they do that, automatically adding it to your basket. I always prompt myself to check if it's there and remove it, but of course when you're rushing you don't have the time. I think Sadler's Wells do it too but it's a bit less.

are there train strikes happening next week as well?

Just wondering, what was the reason for including The Dream and Rhapsody on both bills? I understand that it gives an opportunity for more varied casts to do the roles in both triple bills/saves money on staging, but was wondering if it would have made sense to choose different works for each bill? I've got a ticket to see the Short Works bill with Hamlet and Ophelia/Isadora Duncan, as that would be the most interesting for me. Though I am interested in Les Rendezvous - I've never seen it before - I am wondering whether it makes sense to get tickets for that as well (financially speaking probably not!)

Same, picked up some good Next Gen tickets for RBS, German Ballet, Brno, and Norwegian. Sounds like an interesting line up for this year.

Does anyone know what this will be - ‘All About Us’ – Celebrating diverse voices in ballet as part of the Next Generation Festival?

Whoops, my bad probably said that because they’re usually shown together

Hoping for Coppelia but who knows. Some Ashton hopefully - Les Patineurs? Also Alice in Wonderland but I guess that's unlikely... seems a while since they last did it though, I've never seen it live. Also hoping for Balanchine (Symphony in C, Serenade, Dances at a Gathering) but guess that's unlikely.

Does anyone know what dates Alina Cojocaru is performing with London City Ballet?

Just saying, the Eurostar allows date changes for free (just difference in fare if any) as long as it’s more than 7 days before. Certainly has helped me this year when I needed to rearrange Paris and Amsterdam trips.

Does anyone know when the Danish ballet season gets announced?

I turn up in whatever clothes I already have on, basically one step up from my pyjamas as I mostly work from home, and I really don't care. Because I know that no one's there to see me, we're all there to see the very talented dancers on the stage and that's it. I am young and I was at the young ROH night for Swan Lake. (There's only one young ROH ballet night for this whole season and otherwise young ROH tickets are severely limited/practically non existent this year, so I wouldn't get too upset about it.) I like the atmosphere of having a lot of young people under one roof, especially as the ROH audience tends to skew older particularly in recent years, cost of living crisis etc, it's easier for older people to afford tickets as they're not as impacted by unaffordable housing, bizarre job market, post Covid recession and what have you. Also younger people are less likely to have seen Swan Lake before and they deserve the chance to see it at least once. However in some respects I wish the scheme could be means tested. I understand that this performance was for young ROH and also invited attendees, which could include young rich influencers who could probably afford full price. I also don't wish to sound offensive, but there are many rich young students from predominantly Asian backgrounds who tend to flaunt their designer clothes around London and the ROH, and I don't think this scheme should be directed towards people like that. I personally do not come from a rich background and have paid full price for most ROH performances this year (which resulted in seeing less of them obviously, but I would have hated to miss out on works such as Manon, which I had never seen before this year).

I'm sure they'll be reprising these roles throughout this relatively long Swan Lake run. As you can imagine they were both very good. Amelia interjects wonderful attitude into everything she does, and Annette is calmly brilliant as always.

Forgot to mention that I very much liked Natalia and Reece's portrayal of the Different Drummer main characters. I had totally forgotten the plot so the ending was a shock for me. (I did see Wozzeck when it was on last year but have to admit I didn't like it at all.) Brilliant acting and performances from the whole cast. Danses Concertantes was danced very well with precision, very impressed by Isabella (and it reminded me how much I love Luca Acri's style) but it didn't resonate with me as much as the other pieces. I also feel that Vadim didn't get much of a chance to shine... Reminded me a bit of Scènes de ballet but I much preferred that to this. Requiem was absolutely brilliant and made the whole evening worth it.

i mean, I'm not an expert but I thought so. I noticed that his landings were soft and I could hardly hear them, and I was close to the stage. Turns very good. He was very on point in Act 3, everything done very cleanly. Granted I didn't see him perform it in 2022 with Mayara, this was my first time seeing them both in these roles so I didn't have anything to compare it to. But I think he's come back strong and I wish him well in his next performances of The Winter's Tale and whatever else he's cast in. I'm not sure what injury he had but I think it was his back? I commend him for persisting and coming back after this very challenging time.

Could anyone remind me briefly of the Different Drummer plot and who on earth is the person in the white coat - I’m assuming the Doctor? Really liked all three pieces tonight, but most particularly Requiem. Absolutely superb, I would certainly watch it again many times. David Donnelly was brilliant as the Drum Major.

I was fortunate to attend the performance tonight. I thought Mayara and Cesar were brilliant together. Mayara in particular suits this ballet extremely well.

I do find this quite harsh. And clearly the RB doesn’t agree otherwise they wouldn’t still be casting her in the classics. Can’t speak for this performance as I wasn’t there, but I very much enjoyed her Kitri performance at ROH in November 2023.