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6 minutes ago, aliceinwoolfland said:

 

Maybe it’s unfounded, but I’m not keen on triple bills as I find they tend to be a bit of a mixed bag.

 

Part of the joy of them, is the mixed nature. Sometimes you get a duff piece (or if 2, you hope the good on one first so you can slip away early), but its usually not on for too long, so the pain not eternal. Usually tickets cheaper too, and you get to see a shed load more of the lead dancers, so I always go to as many as I can. :-)

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2 hours ago, Mary said:

Yes, but we have had an awful lot of it. Really, an awful lot! If it was packed into a box and put up in the loft for a while for  a little rest,  it might come out again even more sparkling.....

But it is indeed very welcome that we have other options near Xmas this year - Patineurs for me.

 

 

I think my daughter would chain herself to the ROH doors if she couldn't go to the RB Nutcracker every Christmas!   She loves it so much she got a student ticket and went alone last year as well as to the live stream AND BRB's version.  :)

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10 minutes ago, Anna C said:

 

I think my daughter would chain herself to the ROH doors if she couldn't go to the RB Nutcracker every Christmas!   She loves it so much she got a student ticket and went alone last year as well as to the live stream AND BRB's version.  :)

 

They do occasionally have a season without.  Two or three years ago the Christmas show was Alice.

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1 hour ago, zxDaveM said:

 

Part of the joy of them, is the mixed nature. Sometimes you get a duff piece (or if 2, you hope the good on one first so you can slip away early), but its usually not on for too long, so the pain not eternal. Usually tickets cheaper too, and you get to see a shed load more of the lead dancers, so I always go to as many as I can. :-)

 

I see your point but for those of us who need to travel quite long and expensive distances to get to London it can be too much of a gamble.  That's why I find all-Ashton programmes, for example, so welcome.

 

That said, I'm happier with this season's mixed bills than I have been for quite a few years - I'll be booking at least three of them.

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Ah yes, good point. I do have the advantage of working in London, so can stroll to ROH once the days toil completed, and it’s only 70-80 mins home afterwards. Living in London has to have SOME compensation for the hell on Earth that commuting by Southern Rail provides

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43 minutes ago, RuthE said:

 

They do occasionally have a season without.  Two or three years ago the Christmas show was Alice.

 

I remember. Daughter got her fix by seeing ENB's Nutcracker that year. :)

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1 hour ago, Lizbie1 said:

Posting this here as well :)

 

 

 

If women want to choreograph but are being prevented from doing so, that should be rectified. If a work by a woman is good enough, it should be presented. Other than that, all I care about is the quality of the work, not the gender of its creator. And I don't think that talented choreographers (or any creative people in any art form) should think about presenting material 'in the right way' or adapting it 'for today's audiences'. Artists will inevitably be influenced in various ways by the times in which they live, but other than that they must be free to create and then be judged purely on the quality of their work.

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4 minutes ago, bridiem said:

If women want to choreograph but are being prevented from doing so, that should be rectified.

 

I don't think it's about prevention*, more about the opportunities having been few and far between.

 

*Having said that, I recall some discussion of the recent Draft Works having no choreography from women dancers. I saw an explanation given (I don't know how official or accurate the source was) that the women scheduled to choreography were all too busy dancing (aka doing their day jobs) to be able to commit sufficient time to the choreography and had had to drop out. Scheduling Draft Works at the end of a Nutcracker run and just before Giselle opened can't have been helpful and, to be frank, I don't think whoever planned it for then showed a lot of respect for the workload of the corps de ballet. I wish I could feel confident that a lesson had been learned.

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16 minutes ago, bridiem said:

Artists will inevitably be influenced in various ways by the times in which they live, but other than that they must be free to create and then be judged purely on the quality of their work

 

I half agree - but the RB has seen a *lot* of duds from male choreographers, surely it's time to allow a few women a go at creating one! ;)

 

I do think though that women choreographers can give a very different perspective from men - off-topic, I know, and possibly unfair but I don't think that a man can have got to the heart of what makes Jane Eyre tick in the same way that Cathy Marston has.  And now I've made myself laugh imagining the Mr-Rochester-flashback "jolly whore" scene that McMillan would have found room for :) 

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47 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

*Having said that, I recall some discussion of the recent Draft Works having no choreography from women dancers. I saw an explanation given (I don't know how official or accurate the source was) that the women scheduled to choreography were all too busy dancing (aka doing their day jobs) to be able to commit sufficient time to the choreography and had had to drop out. Scheduling Draft Works at the end of a Nutcracker run and just before Giselle opened can't have been helpful and, to be frank, I don't think whoever planned it for then showed a lot of respect for the workload of the corps de ballet. I wish I could feel confident that a lesson had been learned.

 

And wasn't it Tamara Rojo a few years ago who said she'd been wanting to schedule more works by women, but that two of her preferred choices at the time were pregnant/on maternity leave?

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I do feel that 3 male contemporary choreographers monopolise the ROH stage (while new women choreographers tend to get the Linbury, if anything.) Some of this mainstream work is found to be- by lots of posters on this forum, not just me - not all that great. Some of it, I feel,  is quite cliched.  So I would like to see some different choreographers given much more main stage time, and I would like more of them to be women. I would hope this could happen, without quotas etc, which don't usually work in my view.

But why it doesn't happen- why we get repeat viewings of not very good pieces like the recent case of Age of Anxiety,-but others spring to mind- instead of a new work, I don't know: I suppose it's mainly financial..but not entirely.

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I would have thought that it was perfectly reasonable for Kevin O'Hare to sign up with MacGregor, Wheeldon and, then, Scarlett for a few years but not for eternity and not with too many guarantees of new commissions or repeat showings. The Royal Ballet now feels a bit boxed in by its obligations to these three choreographers and widening its net (more) would be no bad thing - in fact, judging by the Pite, a very good thing.

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14 minutes ago, capybara said:

I would have thought that it was perfectly reasonable for Kevin O'Hare to sign up with MacGregor, Wheeldon and, then, Scarlett for a few years but not for eternity and not with too many guarantees of new commissions or repeat showings. The Royal Ballet now feels a bit boxed in by its obligations to these three choreographers and widening its net (more) would be no bad thing - in fact, judging by the Pite, a very good thing.

 

I think that's very true, capybara. Given that there are never going to be that many new (and revivals of new) works in a season, having 3 people who are all given some sort of priority is far too much. And I personally don't think that any of them really justify the status by the works, much as I've enjoyed some of the works by all of them.

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43 minutes ago, Mary said:

I do feel that 3 male contemporary choreographers monopolise the ROH stage (while new women choreographers tend to get the Linbury, if anything.) Some of this mainstream work is found to be- by lots of posters on this forum, not just me - not all that great. Some of it, I feel,  is quite cliched.  So I would like to see some different choreographers given much more main stage time, and I would like more of them to be women. I would hope this could happen, without quotas etc, which don't usually work in my view.

But why it doesn't happen- why we get repeat viewings of not very good pieces like the recent case of Age of Anxiety,-but others spring to mind- instead of a new work, I don't know: I suppose it's mainly financial..but not entirely.

 

4 minutes ago, capybara said:

I would have thought that it was perfectly reasonable for Kevin O'Hare to sign up with MacGregor, Wheeldon and, then, Scarlett for a few years but not for eternity and not with too many guarantees of new commissions or repeat showings. The Royal Ballet now feels a bit boxed in by its obligations to these three choreographers and widening its net (more) would be no bad thing - in fact, judging by the Pite, a very good thing.

 

3 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

I think that's very true, capybara. Given that there are never going to be that many new (and revivals of new) works in a season, having 3 people who are all given some sort of priority is far too much. And I personally don't think that any of them really justify the status by the works, much as I've enjoyed some of the works by all of them.

 

Hear hear hear !!!!! 

 

Too many new works by the same three for years and years and unfortunately another new work from the mediocre Marriott in the new season  ! I'd love to see more variety in commissioning generally including more from female choreographers.

 

What happened to Brandstrup's Invitus Invitam ? It was a gem for the main stage a few years ago which has been buried since and he hasn't been invited back. Ratmansky's 24 Preludes for the RB may not have been his most successful piece but much of what he's done for ABT and NYCB has been brilliant but I don't suppose we'll see anything by him again. Forsythe's Blake Works for Paris was terrific as was Pite's The Seasons Canon.

 

It seems to me that not only would a wider range of choreographers give the audience more variety in dance style but different choreographers come into the company afresh and maybe focus on different dancers which surely is a benefit for the company too. 

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1 hour ago, Fonty said:

This may have been answered somewhere else, if so, apologies.  But has anyone asked Kevin O'Hare specifically about why there is nothing to mark Fonteyn's centenary?  

Fonteyns centenary is 2019 so there may be celebrations in the 2019 season. 

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Considering that she is and always will be the company's Assoluta, and the immense part she played in establishing it as one of the world's best, I am astonished that there wasn't even a mention of her centenary.  A revival of Ondine  perhaps?  Nothing.  Unless they are planning a tribute evening that we haven't been told about?  I doubt it somehow.

 

I don't understand why they are celebrating Bernstein's centenary but not Fonteyn's.  He had nothing to do with the company whilst she, to a great degree, created it and its English style.  Gggrrrr.

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On 3/21/2018 at 13:09, aliceinwoolfland said:

I’m so excited by the new season but have to say I’m totally fed up of Nutcracker every year. 

I think Nutcracker is a guaranteed "crowd pleaser" and it does bring in new young audiences.  Considering it is Petipa's bi-centenary, it may have been good to revive The Sleeping Beauty rather than Nutcracker over the Xmas period (another "crowd pleaser").  On the Petipa/Tchaikovsky theme, after spending a huge budget on the new Swan Lake, am surprised that it gets no performances for the 2018/19 season.  Admittedly, is scheduled for many performances this summer, but a big new piece like this usually has a further run the following season. 

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9 minutes ago, fashionista said:

 after spending a huge budget on the new Swan Lake, am surprised that it gets no performances for the 2018/19 season.  Admittedly, it is scheduled for many performances this summer, but a big new piece like this usually has a further run the following season. 

 

But isn't Kevin O'Hare planning for the 2019/20 season to be all new works or new productions from the period of his tenure as AD? So maybe he needs Swan Lake as a centrepiece for that?

 

In the context of Swan Lake, I feel rather sorry for the dancers who are not among the 6 pairs cast this year as they will have to wait an undue amount of time before they get their shot at Odette/Odile and Siegfried.

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58 minutes ago, fashionista said:

I think Nutcracker is a guaranteed "crowd pleaser" and it does bring in new young audiences.  Considering it is Petipa's bi-centenary, it may have been good to revive The Sleeping Beauty rather than Nutcracker over the Xmas period (another "crowd pleaser").  On the Petipa/Tchaikovsky theme, after spending a huge budget on the new Swan Lake, am surprised that it gets no performances for the 2018/19 season.  Admittedly, is scheduled for many performances this summer, but a big new piece like this usually has a further run the following season. 

 

I suspect that Sleeping Beauty may return in Autumn 2018 - in honour again of Petipa AND Fonteyn and the SL in 2019 for the reason that Capybara suggests and also due to the fact that ENB is doing SL in their Winter 2018/19 Season (although that may not be a consideration as both do Nutcracker as it happens at the same time).  All of these, of course, bring in the youngsters.  

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12 hours ago, Sim said:

Considering that she is and always will be the company's Assoluta, and the immense part she played in establishing it as one of the world's best, I am astonished that there wasn't even a mention of her centenary.  A revival of Ondine  perhaps?  Nothing.  Unless they are planning a tribute evening that we haven't been told about?  I doubt it somehow.

 

I don't understand why they are celebrating Bernstein's centenary but not Fonteyn's.  He had nothing to do with the company whilst she, to a great degree, created it and its English style.  Gggrrrr.

i have a horrible feeling the Fonteyn commemoration might well be a tribute evening, and a horribly expensive one at that, with a post-show dinner as its main selling point. 

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8 minutes ago, Sim said:

Oh gosh let's hope not.  I'd rather have nothing, than have a commemorative event where most of her real fans, and balletomanes, can't afford to participate.  

 

I fear this may be the case, Sim.  Look at the Hvorostovsky Celebration last Sunday evening.  I was - at the end of the day - able to get a Balcony standing place - but this was not easy.  It was - in the truest sense - an exclusive (and I have to say very enjoyable) event for a deeply loved international artist who saw the ROH as 'his home' - given that the entire Amphitheatre was closed off.  

 

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