Margaret

I started by dancing aroung the kitchen when my Mum had music on the radio. We saw our first performance in Coventry - quite a distance by bus - with International Ballet in 1950 where they performed 'The Sleeping Princess'. I started taking lessons after this as it was such an enthralling occasion. We went to a few other performances in later years both in Coventy and Leicester - one I remember very well was a Festival of Ballet with many famous dancers - including Anton Dolin and Natalia Krassovska. After graduating, I got a job in London, so that I could continue dancing and also attending ballets. This was the 1960s and I can still remember the thrill of seeing Fonteyn and Nureyev in Marguerite and Armand and a wonderful afternoon watching Fille. Moving out of London and having a family meant there were less opportunities to attend performances in London, but I saw quite a few in Southampton. Retirement has meant the opportunity to go to the Opera House and other venues regularly and I love seeing the dancers in the studio (when I can get a ticket). Margaret

I bought one of these ICA Classics some time ago, which included 'The Lady and the Fool' - by Crank and Pinapple Poll, and found it very interesting. Last week I purchased a couple of others from the opera house shop. I have watched part of one - Les Sylphides with Berisova, Elvin and Markova and Giselle with Nerina. This I found fascinating - the original recordings are from 1953 and 1958 and in quite small studios. Nadia Nerina in Giselle is lovely and it was interesting to see Peter Wright (as Albrecht's equerry). I started watching part of the other which also had a recording of Les Sylphides (with a note about the problems of restoring this work) which was not so easy to watch. It also has Coppelia (Nerina, Britton and Helpmann) and part of Giselle (Fonteyn and Nureyev), which I have not seen yet. They have done quite a lot of restoration work on the original black and white films, but they are still a bit grainy and limited by the capabilities of the cameras of the day. Still lovely to have these historical performances available and I look forward to watching the remaining parts I've not had chance to see. Margaret

What wonderful photos - I am looking forward to seeing this production which I missed when it was on before. Many thanks John. Margaret

I have had a reply to my query about Hansel and Gretal and the Friends allocation sold out within a very short time. I suppose that is the problem with a small venue like the Linbury. There is an allocation of seats for public booking, so I can try again. Best of luck to those who would also like to see this ballet. Margaret

I have just tried to book seats for Hansel and Gretal as it is the first day of ballet booking for 'ordinary' Friends. No seats available and each date is listed as SOLD OUT - very annoying. I assume that available seats have been booked by other higher ranked Friends. Whether any seats have been kept back for Public Booking I don't know. Margaret

I too went to the matinee on Saturday. 24-Preludes was interesting - but suffered from the change of casting which made it seem a bit under rehearsed - though Alina and Ricardo danced beautifully. I enjoyed Apollo very much - particularly the wonderful shapes Balanchine makes for his groups of dancers and the way he uses the music and the dancing of Marianela and Carlos. Aeturnum was impressive and made a wonderful end to the afternoon - loved the solo for James Hay and the final pas de deux for Marianela and Thiago. Margaret .

Lovely pictures, thanks so much - I saw the performance on the Friday - would love to have been there for their last performance. Thanks Margaret

I decided to start the piano when I retired and also used the Carol Barratt set of books - recommended by my teacher and with a good variety of pieces to learn.

That is exactly what I mean - enter the return key - but it sometimes does not seem to work Margaret

Thank you Ian - I did not realise that - perhaps you can edit my post which should have read M&A - and inserting amp when I tried to edit out some spaces! The layout - I added paragraph markers to separate text but these did not appear in the post and when I edited to add them - I ended up with two line spaces between paragraphs - editing again brought it back correctly. Stil a bit puzzled. Thanks for your speedy help Margaret

I have just written a posting about the Ashton mixed bill and had to edit it to get the layout correct. I noticed later that there was an error, but the system will not let me edit it now. Not sure what is wrong. The layout problem I had is/was apparent here - having used the enter key to start a new paragraph, this is not reflected in the final posting! Having previewed it to check and it now seems OK! Margaret

I watched on Friday evening which ended with a glorious performance from Tamara Rojo and Sergei Polunin in M&A, which reminded me so much of the first performance I saw in 1965. Monotones I and II were also very enjoyable, particularly II - with Nunez, Watson and Bonelli stunning and absolutely together. La Valse is fun, but not one of my favourites - the stage looks a bit crowded at times and made it difficult for the dancers to keep together. Both of the two short items were well danced, Mara and Rupert in Thais got a great cheer at the end - Emma Maguire and Valentino Zucchetti danced Voices of Spring. So a sad goodbye to Tamara and Sergei (though perhaps he will be back) and good wishes to her for her future career - also sad to see Mara leaving. I have enjoyed so many of their performances and will miss them. Margaret

Thank you for the link, it has some interesting discussions. I do hope they do not combine the Friends Booking for ballet and opera to one day, as suggested - it is much better as it is. The increase in the volume of friends booking will make it much more difficult for the website to cope. It would probably be better to split the public booking to two days to reduce the volume of traffic. Margaret

We took our grand-daughter to yesterday's matinee and had a really lovely afternoon. I agree with Mandy - the narration was much better and loved both Luke Heydon in his many roles and Will Kemp's Ratty - my grand-daughter's favourite character. Clemmine Sveaas was good as Mole and I enjoyed Cris Penfold's Toad. The interval chase round the foyer was great fun and seemed to go on longer than I remember from last time (but that was 6 years ago) - lots of interaction between Toad and the children. It is a lovely production and I do hope we don't have to wait too long to see it again - we have other grand-children waiting! Margaret

Thanks for the pictures - they are reall lovely, I must show them to my grand-daughter before we go to see the show after Christmas. Great to see Luke Heydon and Will Kemp again. Margaret

My first introduction to ballet was with this company - they came to Coventry in 1950 and my mother took me to see the Sleeping Princess as it was then called. I was apparently spell bound and have been a ballet fan ever since. I still have the programme. My last trip with my mother, was a visit to the ROH to see Sleeping Beauty in 1969, where we saw Fonteyn and Nureyev. Margaret

Booking was quick and I got the Mayerling ticket I wanted, but again no tickets available for the 'In Rehearsal' dates - I have not managed to get any of these in any booking period this season - very disappointing. Margaret

Just finished booking and it was not good at all. Got into the site with no trouble, got seats I wanted and then there was an error on trying to purchase. After a long wait I got through to a very helpful box office asssitant who managed to get all my seats back. I did, however, have a problem with the Linbury seats as there were only odd ones left for the date I wanted. I hope they can solve this problem, which apparently was happening in period 1 though it did not affect me. Not a good morning apart from the very helpful box office staff member. Margaret

A wonderful evening with some superb dancing. Lovely to see Tamara in Birthday and a very good supporting cast of dancers, very enjoyable to watch. Month in the Country is a favourite of mine and Zenaida was glorious in it - of the rest of the cast I particularly liked Ondiviela as Kolia. Nice to see Kate Shipway with a bouquet. Les Noces is a strange but compelling ballet - the music on it's own is difficult to listen to, but somehow the whole piece works. The rhythms are very complex particularly for the ensemble dancers and there was one of the early scenes where it didn't look quite right. The last scene was danced really well and ably led by Deirdre Chapman and Ricardo Cervera. Margaret

Jastin Many thanks for the information about rehearsal tickets (though I still think of them as masterclasses). Will keep an eye on the site for any extras that come up Margaret

I went in at 10am and was finished by 10.09 - very fast and easy - but no rehearsal tickets at all for the date I tried. Did anyone get in before 10am and get tickets? I am always wary of this as I had problems in earlier on-line booking systems. Margaret

I agree with Joan that it was a wonderful evening - so good to see everything so clearly and superb dancing. We also enjoyed the two films preceding the two acts - it made a good introduction for the friend with me who has not seen much ballet. So a really enjoyable evening and looking forward to seeing more like it. It would be really nice if the they would do a live relay of a matinee eg Alice next season - then I can take grandchildren. Margaret

I have tickets to see Fille at the cinema, it gives a finish time as 10.40 - which is almost 50 mins longer than it should be. Maybe a similar fault - can't imagine it would be so long. Margaret