jmhopton

11 minutes ago, aliceinwoolfland said:

I imagine Hayward wasn't cast because of her role in Cats. 

I've only just seen the Cats posting. This would explain a lot. I did wonder if her lack of featuring in the major ballets was due to other commitments. Am relieved to find this is true and not just that she is not being selected for major roles. Also looking forward to seeing her in Cats which I've never seen. However, hope she's back to do 2 Pigeons as I booked it specifically to see her as there didn't seem to be many other opportunities and now we know why.

Reading all these wonderful reviews and dreaming of my Baydere's still to come my only regret is that Hayward has not been given a chance to make her mark on this most beautiful of classical ballets. I would have loved a Hayward/Ball/Naghdi cast which I'm sure would have been amazing. Also a disappointment she's not getting a Don Q. My ideal casts for Don Q would include a Hayward/Sambe and Naghdi/Ball casts but I suppose we have to leave some treats for the future. As it is can't wait to see last nights cast next Thursday and at the cinema (possibly twice) and also Yasmine's debut a week tomorrow and Osipova with Coralles whom I don't think I've ever seen. We are so lucky with the RB at the moment. So many amazing dancers to see and one of the best (if not the best) corps de ballet in the world. We are indeed in ballet heaven (if only it wasn't so expensive!)

3 hours ago, LinMM said:

i once had an extreme side stalls circle ticket but made up for occasional loss of view by how close the dancers were!! 

I too had one of these tickets for Mayerling (Bonelli/Morera in the previous run) and I'm sure the proximity to the stage really increased my enjoyment of the performance. I think these seats are great for Macmillan ballets as you can really see the acting/gestures/facial expressions so clearly and I think the advantage of being so close outweighs the disadvantage of occasionally missing a bit of the action. However, if you're thinking of booking one it can be as well to think what side of the stage significant action occurs and plan accordingly. I once sat through a performance of Giselle where I couldn't see Giselle's cottage (more action goes on in front of it than in front of Albrecht's cottage) and a performance of Sylvia where I couldn't see Eros at all! Also it may not work so well for a ballet like swan lake or Bayadere where you want to see the full corps in the white acts.

2 minutes ago, Mary said:

Muntagirov!!!!!!!

I was hoping he'd be this good. I've imagined seeing him as Solor ever since he came to the RB and now I'm so close to seeing him (Next Thursday) I've been slightly worried the reality wouldn't live up to my expectations but it looks as if my fears were groundless. How could I ever doubt him!

Just checked the Don Q prices again and the side stalls circle I paid £45 for (C93) is actually selling for £24 in the Asphodel mixed bill. Even allowing for full length ballets being more expensive than triples this seems to be quite a mark up.

Yes Don Q prices are huge, made worse by the lack of matinee reductions. I was lucky enough to get 1 side stall circle seat for £45 to see Marianella and Vadim. All other side stalls circle Don Q performances I wanted started at £60; way out of my price range. The £45 ticket was the most expensive I bought. All other Don Qs I bought were in amphi. but did get some side stalls circle for the Winter Dreams triple and both 2 Pigeons double bills. Average price paid £34 which isn't too bad I suppose. Ticket prices for Arsenal Football club £16 to £97 so fairly similar for top class entertainment though of course a football match doesn't last as long as a 3 act ballet.

I've had a hugely frustrating morning trying to book. After about 30 minutes my home internet went down so I had to rush off to the local library. Once I got logged back in my basket was empty so I had to start all over again. Then after about 50 minutes the ROH just logged me out saying I was timed out. There was no 5 or 10 minute warning this was going to happen which I put down to the libraries antique computers. By this time my home internet was working so I got back home only to find my basket was empty yet again. Fortunately I'd written down the seats I'd originally selected and was able to find most of them again. As others have said it was a struggle to find seats I wanted at a price I could afford (Don Q side stalls circle was a complete no no for most performances) which made the whole process even longer. I'd just about finished when I realised I only had a minute left to pay!! So it wasn't the library pcs that were at fault. The ROH mustn't message you to say your time is nearly up which I think is very poor as most people are concentrating on selecting seats not looking to see how long they've got. Anyway I just managed it but was left feeling stressed and exhausted.

19 hours ago, Lynette H said:

I don't see any response from the ROH on the point about price rises. 

 

No he didn't address this problem which is crucial to not deterring frequent attenders. So even if the policy isn't there the result could be the same. Mind you looking at the sold out performances of Bayadere and the almost sold out long Nutcracker run they may feel their price rises are justified, unfortunately. However, it was the winter season where the reduced price matinees ends so I suppose we'll have to see if these sales are affected when public booking opens. However, as matinees are the only way people like me can attend a performance without the huge extra expense of staying over in London I suspect not.

Just got back from seeing the final performance of Fille at the Lowry. It was a fabulous evening with some amazing dancing not just from Brandon and Delia but the whole company. Difficult to believe it's only Brandon's second performance as Colas. He has a natural gift for comedy and a lovely Ashton style. I particularly liked his response to the final act mime when he said he wanted 10 children, not 3! I've never seen this done before and it got a laugh which proved the audience understood the mime which was good as I thought sometimes they didn't really get things and applaud like they do at the ROH. However has Fille been performed much in Manchester? I don't remember seeing it in the North before. I thought Delia great too with lovely epaulment 

and a great rapport with Brandon. Congratulations everyone. I could have sat through it all again! Also great to see Janet Mcnulty, Tony Newcombe and Sheila. 

I too wrote to Alex Beard about the original article; possibly about the same time as Briedem, and got a rapid and professional reply. Again he emphasised there was no intention to discriminate against frequent attenders. However, I also mentioned the concerns about the website which he rather dismissed as being non-problematic perhaps not something Forum members would agree with! I did reply and asked him if it would be ok to publish both my letter and his response on the Forum because of the bad feeling caused by the article and he said that would be fine though he thought it had already been covered by his reply to Briedem. However, in my reply I also instanced that frequent attenders might be being deterred by the price rises (I specifically mentioned side stalls circle) and also the matinee price increases and he didn't actively address either of these points. Still, the fact they've been highlighted may make him think about future price rises and possibly about eventually reinstating cheaper matinees though that might be wishful thinking. I do appreciate the fact he took the time and trouble to reply so promptly. We were practically on first name terms at the end!

I'll try and attach the letter I wrote to Alex Beard and his reply. Also the letter I wrote to Kevin O'Hare which I also sent to Alex Beard to prove I'm not really a grouch! I've never done this before so it may not work!

Alex Beard.docx

Alex Beard reply.docx

Kevin O'hare.docx

Alex beard 2.docx

Also disappointed no James Hay as Romeo as he's a senior soloist now but Clarke is cast and he's still only a soloist. I'm not complaining about Clarke as he's a great dancer too but it seems strange he wasn't promoted to first soloist as he's had such major roles lately and is obviously still continuing to get them. Would also prefer to see Coralles as Frankenstein. Anyway looking forward to Romeo and J though somehow it's never been a favourite ballet I don't know why as I love full length dramatic ballets. June 1st with Naghdi/Ball and Osipova/Hallberg looks great as does O'Sullivan/Sambe especially as it's a matinee. Star attraction seems to be Hayward/Corrales but there are just so many to choose from. However, the seat prices seem to be following the Evidenced Based marketing theme with only 10 side stalls circle seats priced at £40 and another 10 at £58. Top prices £130!! Not very good to people like me on a small pension and with transport and accommodation to find on top of seat prices.  I have written to Alex Beard about the whole Evidenced based marketing fiasco and the dire state of the ROH website so I'll have to see what he says.

Incidentally if anyone finds out about the Winter Dreams triple casting before public booking on the 31st I would be very grateful as I want to book for Dec 20th evening if the original casting still stands but casting has been withdrawn.

Well I hope this is sorted before public booking as I intended to book for the Dec 20th evening with its fabulous Winter Dream cast of Lamb, Muntagirov. Naghdi and Heap as I could see the great matinee performance as well for the same visit.

When I was at Manon last week I overheard a lady in the auditorium in the second interval bemoaning the fact she hadn't brought her 7 year old niece! Even allowing she hadn't see the graphic sexuality in the last act I was still surprised she thought the ballet suitable for a 7 year old!

Well I was at the evening performance yesterday and my experience of the production was different to Don Q fan so it's great how we can all agree to differ! From the moment the tavern scene started to unfold I was missing the Georgiadis sets and costumes. Funny how you can take something for granted until you see something completely different. So for me the performance was slightly marred because I kept thinking back to the Georgiadis production and the things I preferred from it (practically everything!) I didn't like the black/white/grey motif for the tavern scene costumes and the costumes themselves looked rather gauzy and insubstantial; compared with the rich earthy colours of the RB they looked rather cheap and tawdry. Yes I know Madame's ladies were prostitutes but they were 'high end' aimed at attracting gentlemen so presumably their clothes should ape those of genuine ladies but with a nod to their occupation; possibly more overtly glamourous than real ladies may be. I thought the costumes last night seemed more prostitute  than classy. Also Mr GM and the gaoler seemed to have their faces made up very white. I know this was the fashion of the time but to me it came over very weirdly on stage. I was constantly thinking of Marcel Marceau and half expecting them to branch out into elaborate mimes! Also, like Don Q Fan I really missed both Gary Avis and Christopher Saunders in these 2 roles. Both have very strong characters and really project these roles. I didn't really get any sense of character from either people playing these roles last night (Fabian Reimar as GM and James Streeter as the gaoler) Also I didn't like GMs pink coat which again I thought compared unfavourably with the RB rich terracotta version. The second Act costumes were I thought possibly even worse than the first. The prostitutes were dressed in candy coloured rouched up tutus and looked as if they were auditioning for the Folies Bergeres. There again this was possibly the intent but for me it didn't work. The young lady dressed as a man was in some sort of black skin tight outfit which was quite ugly especially by comparison to the Georgiadis elegance. In the final act the female convicts all had bonnets with hanging strings which looked rather like pigtails from a distance so you couldn't get the effect of them running their hands through their hair in despair. Manon was the only one without a bonnet. Also in the swamp scene there were no fronds to portray the everglades so Manon and De Grieux could have been anywhere. Perhaps to compensate for this the dry ice seemed to really take over in a big way and as Manon was on the floor I kept expecting her to start coughing!

Anyway, having got the negatives out of the way I thought Jurgita Droninat and Isaac Hernandez splendid in the 2 lead roles. The cast sheet said it was his debut (Is this another thing the RB have stopped doing on their cast sheets?) and I thought after a slightly hesitant start in the tavern he really came alight in the bedroom scene. there was a moment when he CHARGED across the stage to get to Manon and I thought WOW and he really went from strength to strength after that. Similarly he was very passionate in rescuing Manon from the gaoler. I just missed the silent scream at the end which I always think is very effective. I thought Jurgita a very beautiful and accomplished Manon who really portrayed her journey and agony over her choices very well. So the 2 leads were excellent but I don't know if I would go and see the production again. I was disappointed to miss Alina on the opening night and am not able to see her on Saturday as the trains are on strike. My husband offered to pay me to stay over and see her but even to see Alina as Manon, a role I don't think I've ever seen her in, I don't know if I could really enjoy that production again.

I too saw it at the cinema last night and really enjoyed it. I thought Steven and Sarah outstanding and also Laura Morera as Larisch and Mayara Magri as Mitzi Caspar. Possibly my favourite character was James Hay as Bratfisch. I thought he gave a splendid and nuanced performance; hugely memorable. I found myself wishing he had more to do even though it is still a great role.

it was interesting to listen to Laura Cononor's comments about the creation of Mitzi and the revelation that quite a chunk of the ballet was actually cut not long before the first night. They must have realised that many people rely on public transport to get home and a late finish could create problems. Also it is quite a sprawling ballet and I sometimes think it might still do with a bit of pruning; possibly in the tavern or fireworks scene. Also I've never really understood the significance of the picnic scene which seems quite elaborate but always rather sticks out to me as being out of place and possibly dispensable. What is it supposed to achieve? Is it just meant to highlight Rudolf's mental disintegration? I've always felt audience members near me don't really know how to react to it when it has its rather abrupt ending. They seem to feel they should applaud as it's the end of a scene but there's no dancing to applaud so they just whisper and mutter between themselves.

Anyway, a wonderful performance by everyone and it's good to see the RB carrying on the splendid standard they set last season.

Ticket not needed now.

16 minutes ago, alison said:

Well, I might have thought the same about Ball - but am willing to be persuaded otherwise.

That was my first thought as well Alison. I am hoping to attend a Matthew Ball performance so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Personally I don't see how Alexander is any more unsuitable as Rudolf than Matthew and I thought Matthew had a lot on at the moment with debuting in Bayadere as well as his Matthew Bourne commitments.

Selected quote from the above magazine article

'An extensive programme of analysis, begun by Baker Richards and now taken on by these new team members, identified that the ROH was relying on a small core of extremely frequent customers (though not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations) to sell the majority of tickets....

...this presents challenging decisions as they seek to spread risk by growing the core audience and generating new audiences: “We need to accept the difficult reality that making more tickets available to new audiences sometimes means that the frequency of attendance of regular customers might need to reduce.

“This is an incredibly delicate balance, where we need to increase price just enough to reduce frequency of attendance without reducing income or being exploitative. We can only embark on such a strategy with a really sophisticated understanding of the behaviour of our customers.” '

Presumably these 'extremely frequent customers' means many of the people on this forum!! it's nice to know you're wanted (or not!) However, it's good to know they have a 'sophisticated understanding' of price rises and customer behaviour (presumably the winter season increase in matinee prices has something to do with this new sophisticated policy and is meant to deter 'frequent attenders' like me who have to pay out a lot for public transport just to get there). At the moment words fail me; perhaps fortunately!

But if you don't know what's new Mimi it's difficult and very time consuming to search by ballet or production Company as there are many permutations of both. it was so easy to search under ballet as a genre as all you then had to do was search by release date to get the most up to date information. I just don't know how you do this now. It's as if per usual ballet has been regulated to the 'no one wants to know about that' slot on the website.

What is the best way of searching for ballet on Amazon these days? You used to be able to search under 'genre' and find ballet as a genre then you could narrow it down to 'most recent,' 'forthcoming' etc and it was great but as they seem to have done away with ballet as a genre I rather struggle to find new items these days. if you just put ballet in as a search it often doesn't bring new items up. (It didn't bring Onegin up. I had to search for it by title but if you don't know it's there to search for you're not going to find it.)

Just a warning for anyone planning to record from SkyArts. if you want to do it make sure it's within a week of being broadcast as otherwise you will have to pay an extra subscription. This is something that has been brought in fairly recently as in the past I've browsed through their performances and downloaded them no problem. However, when I tried to do this a couple of weeks ago a message came up saying I would have to pay extra (£5 I think). It might have been a one-off charge rather than a monthly subscription but when I spoke to someone they said after a week the original broadcast programmes are counted as 'box sets' and charged for accordingly. Not sure if this refers to all Sky Channels but just for interest I clicked on an episode of Father Brown from Alibi and the same thing happened. I think this is just Sky channels. BBC still stay as long as they say they will. They kept that quiet. What a rip off after what they charge!

I would like one ticket  £50 or under, please preferably amphi or side stalls circle (if you can get side stalls circle for this price!)  Thanks Joan

Well I left the cinema tonight after seeing the screening of the Merry Widow on a real high having had a wonderful evening; as did the 4 ladies I went with. We all loved the sets, costumes, dancing and choreography ( I was really pleased when the Act 3 set at Maximes got a round of applause as it really deserves it just like Act 3 of the new RB Swan lake). To me the choreography didn't come over at all as a 'pot boiler'. Yes there were a lot of waltzes and character dances but I thought Hynd was very clever into transposing them into balletic movements with some really quite tricky movements. it's just it was all done so seamlessly and in period it wasn't so obvious as, for example, the  pas de deux in a Macmillan ballet which call attention to themselves. If Australian ballet ever come again it would be great if they would bring it and we could compare different casts.

Just to repeat the thread I just posted under Sergei Polunin in case anyone didn't see it there his 'Documentary Portrait' Dancer is being shown this Saturday on BBC2 11pm-12.20 am. Thought it good to add to this thread anyway as there is so little to put on it, alas, it is in danger of getting lost!

Sergei's 'Documentary portrait' Dancer (quoting Radio Times) is being shown this Saturday 22nd on BBC2 at 11pm -12.20am. English/Russian/Ukraine + subtitles.