ENB Swan Lake: casting

[aileen]

DQ, ENB normally publish their casts very late and people moan about that. Ballet companies can't win. If they publish late people complain. If they publish early and the cast changes (which is more likely to happen) people are disappointed as well. ENB were obviously hoping (perhaps unrealistically) that Vadim's work permit/visa would come through in time. The situation was exacerbated by Elena's injury which prevented her and Arionel Vargas from taking Daria and Vadim's performances. I feel that ENB need to build some sort of (non-corrupt) relationship with the Immigration and Nationality Department, if this is possible, with a view to work permit and visa applications being processed more quickly.

[alison]

Also, I don't like it when ballet companies & theatre's don't update their websites. Surely, it's the easiest thing in the world to have up to date information?

 

Not necessarily. Do you know who runs ENB's web presence? The Royal Opera House has its own web content manager, but I don't imagine ENB has the funds (let alone the need, being simply a company, rather than a venue) to do something like that. It may be run either by a third party (it used to be, I think), or be overseen by someone who has other responsibilities. In the days when I used to ring ENB on an irregular basis, I was frequently told that the person I wanted to speak to was on the tour, or at the theatre, or elsewhere, and ENB have had a number of engagements in recent days which may have required people to be away from their desks/otherwise occupied.

 

Having said that, I am convinced that certain theatres are either deliberately recalcitrant about cast/programming changes, or just don't give a toss about keeping their audiences correctly informed.

[Jan McNulty]

I often think that the effort of keeping a website up to date (and I'm not only talking ballet websites) is seriously underestimated. I would imagine that if last minute casting changes are required then the last thing on the person responsible for casting's mind would be remembering to keep the web manager up to date!

 

Apart from when ENB are in Liverpool, I don't feel I can have the luxury of waiting for casting so I always book for the performances most convenient for my travel requirements and I just have to hope that this means I will get the opportunity to see favourite dancers. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn but so it goes...

[capybara]

We would rather have the casting listed at the booking stage (i.e. month beforehand) and then have to cope with last minute changes through injury etc. Unfortunately, the current ENB approach - i.e. only to publish names about a month or so beforehand - means that, if one waits, the seats one wants to buy are gone.

 

Lovely to see on this post the amount of justified interest there is in Vadim. Let's hope he stays with ENB under the new management. Having seen copies of the rehearsal schedules over the last couple of weeks in Markova House (ENB's HQ), we believe that the Company was genuinely hoping that Vadim would get his visa in time. We don't think that they were 'pulling a fast one'. After all, they announced other changes as soon as it was apparent that Elena wouldn't be able to dance.

[Bruce]

We would rather have the casting listed at the booking stage (i.e. month beforehand) and then have to cope with last minute changes through injury etc. Unfortunately, the current ENB approach - i.e. only to publish names about a month or so beforehand - means that, if one waits, the seats one wants to buy are gone.

 

Agree with this. Casting much earlier please, but we need to be grown-up and appreciate these are real bodies and can't always be there exactly when planned for.

[Beryl H]

Agree ENB need to provide casting much, much earlier, we all know it can and probably will change but the RB are prepared to announce it ages in advance and genuinely do their best to stick to it!

 

 

[Irmgard]

There are a couple of points here I might be able to throw some light on. I asked Wayne Eagling several years ago why casting was advertised so late for ENB and he said it was his hope that people would come to see the company as a whole rather than individual dancers. In theory this is fine but I think we possibly all have dancers we prefer in certain roles. It may be that Tamara Rojo reverts to the previous policy of advertising principal casting on the publicity material. At present, even the principals do not know which performances they are going to do until a few weeks beforehand. I can assure Don Q that there was every hope at ENB that Vadim would be back in time to do both his performances. Certainly this was the case when I was at a rehearsal last Saturday. I beileve Takahashi and Konvalina only had 24 hours notice, or less, that they would be doing opening night, such was the hope of Vadim's return. By Friday afternoon it was known that Vadim would not be able to return by Sunday and it was only that evening, after their dress rehearsal, that Anais Chalendard and Junor Souza were told that they would be making their debuts on Sunday. SusanR - with the best will in the world, I don't think Konvalina and Takahashi could have danced three days in a row. The alternative would have been Begona Cao and Esteban Berlanga but perhaps management thought the excitement of a couple making their debut would compensate for not seeing Vadim? Anyway, I hope those at today's performance felt it was worth seeing.

I agree that the whole debacle over visas does make the company look disorganised and it is such a shame it had to happen during Wayne Eagling's last few weeks with the company, and with the dancer he discovered and nurtured! The wonderful Philip Maddock used to look after work visas for non-EU dancers but it appears his replacement has not yet got to grips with the process. I don't think I am speaking out of turn to report that one dancer found herself deported to the US during the recent tour with Flawless! Luckily things are obviously more organised in the US and she returned within a couple of weeks. It seems to me that the sooner a new Administrator (or Chief Executive as the post is now called) the calibre of Craig Hassell is appointed, the better for all concerned!

[capybara]

Re visas. Surely someone vacating a post briefs his/her successor, especially over something as vital as this?

[Irmgard]

Of course, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the brief will be followed!

[tim b]

Now Lachlan Monaghan has tweeted that he has visa problem - do we need to start a new thread and a petition to support him? I thought Australia was part of the Commonwealth anyway - last time I heard, the Queen is Queen there too!!

[alison]

Yes, but it's not part of the EU. The Commonwealth doesn't count. The RB's Steven McRae had problems getting back to the UK after a trip back home to Australia too, a few years ago.