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Birmingham Royal Ballet - Spring casting 2018


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  • Jan McNulty changed the title to Birmingham Royal Ballet. Southampton. The Sleeping Beauty casting
24 minutes ago, Sim said:

I would love to go to S'ton on the 3rd to see B and D, but my daughter will be away and will kill me if I go without her.  Do we know yet when Birmingham casting will be available?  Thanks.  

 

It's usually about 2 weeks before the opening date.

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3 hours ago, Tony Newcombe said:

Casting has been announced for The Sleeping Beauty at The Mayflower Theatre Southampton

The much anticipated casting of  Delia Mathews and Brandon Lawrence has been confirmed

 

:( (because I can't get there, not my reaction to them being cast!)

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Come on folks. Not everyone is sufficiently familiar with dancers of any company to work out who we are talking about if we use given names alone. But, here, we have initials only to wrestle with as well - and it doesn't feel altogether courteous to the lovely casts.

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  • Jan McNulty changed the title to Birmingham Royal Ballet - Spring casting 2018

Casting has been published for Coppelia in Sunderland.

 

The company (sadly) only does 4 performances.  I am thrilled with the casts we are seeing!

 

Thursday 5th:  Miki Mizutani/Tzu-Chao Chou/Michael O'Hare

 

Friday 6th mat:  Maureya Lebowitz/Lachlan Monaghan/Rory Mackay

 

Friday 6th eve:  Arancha Baselga/Max Maslen/Jonathan Payn

 

Saturday 7th mat:  Miki Mizutani/Tzu-Chao Chou/Valentin Olovyannikov

 

https://www.brb.org.uk/whats-on/event/coppélia

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Janet,

Thank you for publicising this.

BRB's inability/unwillingness to produce castings for performances is notorious, but to delay until a fortnight before the performance dates strikes me as almost outrageous. If the company cares so little, why should the public? Are we to assume that in the performances without a listed conductor, the orchestra will make their own arrangements?

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I think we are expected to go and see the company rather than specific dancers.

 

We fans who go often enough and know the company well enough to choose casts are sadly in the minority so I do see the company's point of view.

 

Mind you, with another company I follow we are lucky to get any advance casting at all.  At least if you don't know who to expect you are not disappointed when someone else dances!

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Janet,

 

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I think that is probably the argument that the company would put forward - that people should/do book to see the company and that the individuals cast are of less importance than the company and the ballet. It's just that I think that argument is rubbish. Balanchine and City Ballet tried to do that years ago and had to abandon it quite quickly because attendances fell . I wonder, if people book to see the company. how would knowing the cast in advance hurt the bookings? Knowing the casting in advance could only increase the bookings by getting people to book for more performances.

 

The reason for not making casting known well in advance is more likely to be administrative convenience. Waffling around by coming out with platitudes about "booking to see the company is the important thing" or "injuries might cause us to change casting" is just that - waffle and I wish Birmingham Royal Ballet would start to pay more attention to its audience both real and potential than it has done recently.

 

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I agree with everything Douglas says. In the old days the casts were always on the leaflets for the weeks shows at whatever venue they were appearing (I still have some of these). I can understand not announcing casting when the subscription booking opens as that is too far in advance but leaving it to 2 weeks before performances is not good enough. We all know that the dancer we book to see may be off ill or injured but is the risk we are willing to take to see a favourite dancer or one who is new to a role. The general public will always book for the day of the week which is most convenient for them but if they see a dancer they really like they may be encouraged to see them again with enough advance notice. This may possibly grow your audience, as it is lack of casting just penalises the core audience of fans and means all the best seats are usually sold by the time you find out who is dancing. Let's hope that when a new director is appointed he/she will have a different viewpoint on announcing casting a little more in advance.

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Not to mention the fact that, fairly recently, casting was confirmed so late that the only return train I could still afford once I'd booked was a 3-hour London Midland train from hell - jam-packed, to the extent that it actually made me feel ill, all the way to whatever the last stop before London was - Milton Keynes?  I have no intention of doing that again.

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