Don Q Fan

Think it may be Aleksey Lisitsin someone on Twitter is desperate for a photo of him as Rothbart.

Yes and WITH Frola!!! Can't wait to see him again after his Nijinsky in Paris last year!

Glad you liked it😍, I would have written more but having let things settle in my brain these are the edited highlights!! Those able to get to Holland are in for a great season ahead, I'm heading back to see La Dame aux Camellias in November.

100% concur with you. I gave it the lowest marks on the Sadlers Wells survey and said I want a refund. Is it just me or is there an element of self indulgence here, not to mention Emperor's New Clothes about this show and others of its ilk?

I thoroughly enjoyed the Gala last week in Amsterdam. The Dutch certainly know how to throw a party! The show started with the Grand Defile quite literally the whole company on stage for a stunning few minutes set to Tchaikovsky Sleeping Beauty music. See for yourself! Thereafter followed a mixture of excerpts from the forthcoming season rep and other pieces. I was completely impressed by the standard of dance and breadth of talent at DNB. It was lovely to see the return from maternity leave of Anna Tsygankova and return from injury of Michaela de Prince who danced a solo called Portrait (below). Among the classical dance my favourites were the black and white Swan Lake pdds, from the Rudi Van Dantzig production, and the Flames of Paris pdd. In the latter, Young Gyu Choi and Aya Okumura provided the fireworks 🙂 Anna Ol and Artur Shesterikov gave a lovely performance of the Act 2 Swan Lake pdd which gave the corps de ballet a chance to showcase their work as well. In the Swan Lake Act 3 pdd, Maia Makhateli, as Odile, whipped off the most amazing set of fouettes which rounded the evening off perfectly. I am a huge fan of Maia and she was wonderful in this excerpt, partnered by Daniel Camargo. Fittingly this pdd was the finale to the show(below). Of the modern pieces the Junior Company were just amazing in Grimm choreographed by Ernst Meisner and Marco Gerris, which was a really lovely take on the Grimm Fairytales - I loved seeing the 7 dwarfs ballet dance and hip hop their way through their routine. It was like nothing else I have seen before and very enjoyable! I also very much enjoyed In The Future, by Hans Van Manen, which utilised colour with movement in a fascinating way by the costumes being green to the front and red to the back. Really simple but very effective. There were lots of other highlights for me - too many to mention - but I wanted to share some thoughts and photos of this lovely evening. The Black Tie Gala Evening ended with golden ticker tape and huge applause. It was absolutely delightful to see everyone in the audience dressed to the 9s which made it a very special evening! My Mum said it took her back to her youth when everyone dressed up for the theatre...how times change. DonQ Fan

A few curtain call photos from Friday's show.

Glad to see Spartacus and Bright Stream.in the rep but not Swan Lake and Bayadere AGAIN. Shrew I'm not sure of. Would have loved to see Pharaoh's Daughter again, Esmeralda and a mixed bill . Possibly Marco Spada or Onegin. Oh well makes it cheaper as I'm sure the tickets won't be cheap!

Thoroughly enjoyed The Trocks this afternoon, especially after the Osipova show last night. Good to see some other cast members taking over the Dying Swan solo and Helen Highwaters did a sterling job. The usual slapstick in Swan Lake never fails to amuse. Loved seeing the new to me pieces La Trovitaria and the Little Humpbacked Horse. Patterns in Space is just hilarious and I do wonder if it's cocking a snook to noisy audience members too! All in all a great fun show and looking forward to program 2 next week.

Apart from Valse Triste, the Ave Maria piece and Leaves are Fading, "Pure Dance" was a waste of talent. There wasn't much ballet content. I knew I should not have gone to this after the last O/V effort. Lesson learned.

Thank you all for the info👍

Do we know what Chase is doing now? I shall miss him very much tomorrow.

Great to hear New Classics was good. I swear I saw Mr Ratmansky on Saturday night at the gala it probably was him as his piece was premiering in the week. The gala was pretty good too. I look forward to Osipova tonight then especially Valse Triste!

Do we have a run time for the show please? Thank you.

Go if you can get a cheap ticket - I booked as soon as they went on sale ages ago. You'll love them!

Going tomorrow - with, I might add, VERY low expectations after that awful show she did with Vasiliev at the Coli a few years ago! Hoping for a marginal improvement but you never know!

I really enjoyed Vienna's Nureyev Raymonda and preferred it to the Mariinsky version. Not sure Vienna are doing it this season though.

As I said we're all different. Mc Gregor is my worst nightmare. I'll just stick to classical ballet.

I saw Manon twice last time in Manchester my original booking was cast with Takahashi who was good but I managed to get Klimentova and Vogel after casting was announced and they just blew me away. This version is so much better than RB thanks to its pared back sets. Hoping for good casting then I'll book Manchester.

Thanks for the advice. I'm reluctant to book hotel and trains without a ticket though as I'm not London based. Obviously I'll keep an eye out and if I can get train and hotel at a reasonable cost I may be able to manage it.

It is always a bit of a lottery, but I would not miss it anyway, this years show was a bit of a damp squib but I still liked it - and the chance to see Lantratov and Alexandrova is a no brainer.

Don Q, Jewels, Onegin M&A NOOOOOOOO! I'd cull all the McGregor and everything of that ilk!

Don Q is just about my most favourite ballet! And I love the Acosta version especially the gypsy scene with the guitars on stage. I love the Minkus score and just about everything else about the ballet. The best is of course the Bolshoi version prior to the current version. And yes I was lucky enough to witness the Osipova/Vasiliev nights at the Coli and ROH and those performances were electric. Fine by me if you don't like it, I don't care for McGregor etc...but that is what makes us individuals. I just find DonQ is such a happy ballet and it makes me happy, just like Fille. It is a feel good ballet imho. I am desperate to attend the Insight evening on 4/2/19 but I dare say when tickets on sale there will be nothing left for a mere non friend of ROH like me and I am quite sad about that. I just hope I can get a ticket for Osipova and Corrales as well as other casts. I cant wait for this next run!

He wasn't there long then. Is there trouble at t'mill?

Huge congrats to Matthew Ball and all other promotees.

Yes their Nijinsky in Paris was great👍