DoctorDerry

23 hours ago, MJW said:

 

Not quite sure what to make of their costumes - they might look a little better "live"

The costumes for the Tanowitz look truly horrible, but I hope to be proved wrong tomorrow 

So agree with TSR. You may be a superstar dancer yet a wretched human being

We went to the Thursday matinee and had a terrific time. Carlos Acosta was sitting n our row… he looked as if he enjoyed it as much as we did.Loved the exuberance ,the colour, and the great technique displayed.We left feeling happy and so very glad we had gone on such a warm day. Made the train journey home quite tolerable.Everyone sitting near us said what a great time they had had.

Dancers Diary has now posted the full Grande pas Classique in you-tube. Both are phenomenal

What a fun thread .Thanks
 My standout dancers of the season were Fumi K and William B So their R and J was my favourite performance ,moving, joyful and elegant perfection . Both were great in Swan Lake, Fumi and Federico! How could you better that for so many reasons. Then William and Lauren became the tragic ,beautiful and doomed pair.

I so loved Laura Morera in Month, and the triple bill was a gorgeous evening.

Hoping for more beauty next season.

I have never seen Northern Ballet on stage but saw the filmed ‘Merlin’ last week and thought it was terrific. Even my husband liked it and that does not happen very often!

Sorry I am late with my reply to art enthusiast but I just noticed the post asking about monkey pox. Putting on my professional hat rather than my ballet lovers tiara. There is no need to think in terms of lockdowns and pandemic. Monkey pox is not easy to transmit and requires close personal contact such as within a family or sexual contact.

so no risk to the wider population ,of interest it can be caught by family pets.

Hope this helps

Just wanted to say thank you all for your many and varied comments on this ballet that I chose not to see. If it lasts in the repertoire I might make an effort on the future.

There is always an inbuilt problem when a ballet is based on a book. In this case I had really disliked the book when a read it about 10 years ago and found it a very poor representation of the magic realism genre .So when I heard about the ballet being created I read it again and still did not see any great value in it. Added to that I find Joby Talbot’s music trivial. While I have loved Wheeldon’s abstract one act ballets  I have not liked either of the three act narrative works, with the notable exception of the scene with the Queen of hearts in ‘Alice ‘, which I love.

so it seems sensible sometimes just to say’ this is not my thing’

Even so I would have liked to see this wonderful company again this season.

My default when I find someone very familiar ,but cannot remember from where is to presume they were a patient whom I had seen only once or twice. This has led to hilarious misunderstandings. Now I studiously avoid any such false memories. Better not to know than to guess wrong!

Following the missed opportunity with Ed Watson.

I had an odd experience at the theatre in Oxford. Probably the New Theatre but I honestly can’t remember. It was ages ago .I was there with my ballet mad daughter, her friend and the friends mother to see a ballet ,at the interval I bumped into a familiar figure whom I could not place ( that usually meant a patient ) So we chatted away about this and that for a good 10 minutes asking how each other was etc. When I returned to my seat my friend who was supervising the girls said “ I didn’t realise you knew Lynn Seymour”… I did not. Obviously her performance in R and J all those years before had engraved her in my brain.

I wonder who she thought I was?

I am really enjoying reading these diverse stories on ‘finding ballet’.. So here is mine. Like many girls I was sent to ballet in a local church hall which I enjoyed but was not heart broken when we moved away and ballet stopped. I imagine we watched some ballet on TV but a small black and white set did not set my blood racing. However a school trip to Covent  Garden to see R and J with Lynne Seymour and Christopher Gable did exactly that. I was in love with the ballet, the story which was also my GCE English Shakespeare play from then on.nonetheless lack of money and time restricted performances.

Then as a junior doctor working crazy hours my husband and I decided that if neither of us were on duty on a Friday night we would ‘ go and see something / anything !’  We bought season tickets for Les Grandes Ballets Canadien as we lived in Montreal, so we saw all the  Canadian companies and the New York and Boston companies who toured north of the border. It was wonderful, then I had a second light bulb moment. The next touring company was the Kirov so off we went on Friday (of course) and at some point this young male dancer appeared and totally consumed the stage and the theatre with an astonishing performance which defied gravity with consummate artistry   We had never heard of him, it was Baryshnikov, two weeks later in the US he defected.

On coming back to the U.K. to live I saw only occasional BRB performances, no RB,but wherever we were in the world on holiday we always went to the ballet.

Opera and theatre had displaced ballet until I saw the film ‘Romeo and Juliette beyond words’ and had another light bulb moment. So thank you Ballet Boyz,  Bracewell and Hayward,I have a relit enthusiasm for this beautiful art form

Lots of interesting information in this chat, it would be interesting to hear from William himself if he was offered a place at RB. I heard an I interview with him saying he approached Kevin O’Hare to move to RB  from BRB and it took two years before he was offered a place, something about Kevin needing to prioritise his own protégées. It was one of the Tom and Ty podcasts I listened to during Covid (when I had returned to work and needed to think of other things)

I feel very fortunate after reading other peoples’ experiences that the showing in CineWorld Cheltenham was nigh on perfect. I was disconcerted when entering to see Darcey Bussell on screen and no sound, but the management sorted it out before the performance began. Phwee! Wonderful view. I loved being able to see the facial expressions expressions and bits I had missed when seeing a live performance in mid March.

I absolutely loved Lauren  in both roles, totally convincing for me ,and William Bracewell! What an actor, what a dancer. How he is not a principal is beyond my understanding. Loved the swans ,the sisters ,Benno and loved to hate von Rothbart. I just did not want it to end.

I was really happy to hear they will live stream all future ballets and opera next season. Wonderful. I can even watch in Spain

Rob , as someone who cannot attend as often as they would like ,your wonderful photos make me think I have been in the auditorium too.

Thank you

It is £20 at our CineWorld here in Cheltenham. Seemed OK to me and I have not checked which of the screening rooms  I will be going to, it is usually a small one. I will be interested in comparing Will Bracewell partnering Lauren as I saw him at ROH earlier with Francesca who gave what I felt, was a somewhat underpowered performance   Hope there is not too much popcorn around!

Wow. I thought. Vadim was going to be a Solo Siegfried with his own personal quartet of Odette/Odiles. Hope someone has a grasp on traffic control.

Have a great evening everyone who can attend

On 23/04/2022 at 22:34, ninamargaret said:

Having read that Luca  Acri danced this role at the matinee I tried, and failed dismally, to imagine him in a blond wig. I will be seeing this programme next Saturday and was preparing myself for the wig's  appearance, but can now relax and prepare to enjoy it, as I'm sure I will. Thank you for setting my mind at rest!

I wonder if it would be possible to have an annual Ashton Festival the way the Italians have a Puccini or Verdi festival at an appropriate venue and time. I would go!

Thank you again fellow ballet lovers I really learn so much from your comments .

I have finally found time to try and summarise my feelings following Saturday night’s performance which was a truly special experience. My grandchildren refer to their favourite footballers as GOAT, which I had to have explained means “greatest of all time”. I do not go quite that far but it really was uplifting,taking one’s spirits to a serene and beautiful place. I will cherish the memory.

I had chosen to see Morera as she is an almost invisible yet perfect principal dancer, I also thought I would have had Bracewell as Belaiev and was disappointed when he was replaced by Vadim, well what a surprise was in store for us .His dancing is always superb, but I have never been convinced by his acting before.he really inhabited the character and Morera, surely the Natalia Petrovna against whom all others will be measured drew more from him than had seemed possible.The whole cast in ‘’Month” worked perfectly together ,everyone was in that dacha ,at that time ,living and dancing this exquisite love story. My thanks to them all .

 Brief mention of Scene, which thanks to Christopher Carr’s live stream I really relished, although I would have been better higher up than the stall circle seats we had ,Yasmin was  perfect .Reece Clarke did not seem well suited to the role on such a busy stage but I suspect I am alone with that view.

Rhapsody was terrific and Anna Rose was the loveliest lightest of butterflies.

A really perfect evening

Just noticed a change of cast for the 30th. I had particularly chosen this date for the perfect alignment of Laura Morera ,who dances so rarely these days and William Bracewell (replacing Bonelli) both  such a perfect Ashtonian dancers. No doubt I will bear up with having Vadim! Still a disappointment. I wonder why? Too far ahead to be Covid related 
will be a lovely evening I am sure

Thank you all for so much commentary on the triple bill. I did not fancy it or think it worth the effort of coming to London as I am not a major fan of contemporary works. So feeling glad not to have missed something special. I am so looking forward to the Ashton triple bill.

6 hours ago, PeterS said:

I don’t think I could ever watch such a sumptuous & multi-layered production and leave disappointed. It’s always unfortunate when a highlight doesn’t happen. Regardless, I found much pleasure again last night. Overall, there was much to enjoy and relish in last night’s performances albeit none were flawless. Then again, neither am I. 

This is my first post, so thank you to all previous contributors. I really enjoy reading the comments. We saw Swan Lake last night and really enjoyed it. We have seen it all over the world but this was the first time with RB and this production.The first thought was how truly extraordinary the massed swans were, we have never seen better. The orchestra too was absolutely top class.  My stand out performer was William Bracewell , a truly musical and lyrical dancer and a convincing actor , Siegfried as a character is quite hard to like but he managed it, also very impressed by Benno, he also had the best costumes!

nobody disappointed but we cannot compare with other RB couples whom we have not seen