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The Royal Ballet: Frankenstein, March 2019


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1 hour ago, alison said:

What's with all the bowing and curtseying?  Frankenstein and his bride aren't royalty, are they?  (If they were, wouldn't there have been some indication of this in the birthday party in Act II?)

Alison, I think curtseying to your hosts/seniors etc may have been a European courtesy. During the 1980/90s when I dealt with East European students and teachers I was often greeted by a small curtsey by women and a hand kiss from the men. Bet it doesn't happen now!

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4 minutes ago, ninamargaret said:

Alison, I think curtseying to your hosts/seniors etc may have been a European courtesy. During the 1980/90s when I dealt with East European students and teachers I was often greeted by a small curtsey by women and a hand kiss from the men. Bet it doesn't happen now!

In the 1950s my high school class was joined by a girl from an Air Force family who had spent some years in Germany.  Despite all efforts to dissuade her, she persisted in leaping to her feet and bob-curtseying when addressed by a mistress in class.  We made her life rather difficult, I confess.

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I think a lot of the comments have suggested that discounts are for students.  I know a couple of non students/not ROH Friends were able to get good amphitheatre tickets £10 each ticket for Monday's performance a couple of hours or so before curtain up.

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29 minutes ago, JohnS said:

I think a lot of the comments have suggested that discounts are for students.  I know a couple of non students/not ROH Friends were able to get good amphitheatre tickets £10 each ticket for Monday's performance a couple of hours or so before curtain up.

 

JohnS can you identify for us where this deal was offered by the ROH.  I would be most grateful to know where to look for such as I'm sure would many others.  

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22 minutes ago, Bruce Wall said:

 

JohnS can you identify for us where this deal was offered by the ROH.  I would be most grateful to know where to look for such as I'm sure would many others.  

 

I’ve never seen an offer advertised anywhere - my brother and a friend simply asked at the Box Office a couple of hours beforehand.  

For completeness perhaps I should say they had got some very restricted view tickets in the first place but I have no idea if that was a factor.

Edited by JohnS
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43 minutes ago, JohnS said:

 

I’ve never seen an offer advertised anywhere - my brother and a friend simply asked at the Box Office a couple of hours beforehand.  

For completeness perhaps I should say they had got some very restricted view tickets in the first place but I have no idea if that was a factor.

 

Thanks so, JohnS.  I'm sure the ROH BO sold the tickets to your associates on a face value basis (including any concessions such as are publicly registered) as I believe they are legally required to do.  

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12 minutes ago, Bruce Wall said:

 

Thanks so, JohnS.  I'm sure the ROH BO sold the tickets to your associates on a face value basis (including any concessions such as are publicly registered) as I believe they are legally required to do.  

 

There is no such law; they can sell tickets for whatever reduced price they want.

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This is nothing new as far as the Young ROH scheme (students) is concerned though - my daughter got a great SC seat for Fille for £10 a few years ago.  IIRC the Students were sent a Student Standby email a day or two before offering single seats for £10; maybe they were returns. 

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I was fortunate today that this is selling so slowly. At 1pm I got what I thought was a Friday rush ticket for tomorrow evening only to discover, when I got home & checked my emails some 4 hours later, that I'd accidentally booked for the matinee instead. I checked the website & found most of the evening rush tickets were still available so I phoned the box office & was able to swap (the assistant kindly didn't charge me). That'll teach me to try to simultaneously book an ROH rush ticket, book a National Theatre rush ticket & do the work I was supposed to be doing!

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I do wonder how many students keep coming to the ROH once they stop being students & find they suddenly have to pay over £100 for the same seats they've been getting for £10. Though given arts organisations all seem to be obsessed with new audiences perhaps the ROH is happy to have a constant student turnover.

 

I've just arrived & got tonight's cast list & am surprised to find Mayara Magri's Justine, as I didn't know she was doing the role & don't recall seeing her name mentioned in any reviews. I may however now be more upset by the character's fate than I thought I would be!

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1 hour ago, Dawnstar said:

I've just arrived & got tonight's cast list & am surprised to find Mayara Magri's Justine, as I didn't know she was doing the role & don't recall seeing her name mentioned in any reviews. 

 

'So, the Justines have been: Romany Padjak, Isabella Gasparini and Mayara Magri. Anyone else?

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Well, it’s just that she wears the same costume before and when Victor's mother dies, when he goes to Med School, when he comes home and is nursed, when his brother is being tutored and has an (eighth ? birthday) when she’s arrested and when she’s hanged. 

 

And the maids wear black with white aprons, so she’s probably not a maid, more a nurserymaid although not before William is born; anyway I'm puzzled that her costume doesn’t change from Act 1 to Act 2.

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3 hours ago, capybara said:

 

'So, the Justines have been: Romany Padjak, Isabella Gasparini and Mayara Magri. Anyone else?

I've just gone back through several pages to try to work this out but failed, as the majority of the comments don't mention Justine. As Pajdak danced with the Bonelli/Morera cast earlier in the run then either Magri danced with the Dyer/Lamb cast then joined the Bonelli/Morera cast as well or there's a fourth Justine that no-one seems to have mentioned.

 

I'm glad I've seen this once & assuaged my curiosity but I don't think I'd want to see it again in a hurry. A lot of time seemed to be wasted in fairly pointless dancing - I could not come up with any reason for the several minutes of dancing the anatomy students did other than "because its a ballet" - then the more important moments often felt rushed. According to the synopsis Act 2 is set 7 years after the end of Act 1 but it felt as if it was only a matter of days/weeks afterwards, with Victor so tormented & the Creature learning to bow & finding the journal. What's he been up to for the intervening 7 years that he never checked his pockets?!

 

I thought the cast all did a good job. I was pleased to finally see both Bonelli & Hay live, 2 and a half months after neither were in the Nutcracker they were originally scheduled for. There were a couple of times where I thought the same thing that people said about Swan Lake "why is the friend doing all the dancing while the leading man mopes around at the side?". I thought Morera was very good in a rather under-characterised role. Elizabeth only seems to exist to provide Victor with a love interest. I thought Kish was excellent as the Creature, managing to make him both sympathetic & horrific. A bit more of an explanation as to why he suddenly decided to kill all Victor's remaining relatives/friends would have been helpful. I find Magri very likeable in the roles I've seen her in so far (looking forward to Don Q next week) but didn't find Justine's hanging too traumatic, partly because I felt it was one of the moments that was rather rushed.

 

Compared to the Nutcracker & Don Q I felt I missed more from the side stalls circle tonight. I was prepared to miss the Creature skulking around & I don't mind that as much but I found it annoying when Victor & Elizabeth vanished from view at times during their pdds in Acts 2 & 3 and so did the Creature/Elizabeth & the Creature/Victor in the last part of Act 3.

Edited by Dawnstar
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I surmise that Magri was scheduled to dance opening night with the Bonelli/Morera cast, but was knocked out by injury. Glad she is back.

 

The other Justines have been Gasparini and Pajdak. The Henrys were Hay, Acri, and Zucchetti. 

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I went to opening night (Bonelli/Morera/Wang/Hay), Friday 15th (Dyer/Lamb/Hirano/Acri) and closing night (Bonelli/Morera/Kish/Hay) and I thought I’d try to make sense of my reactions to the performances - before this thread goes as cold as a dissecting-room cadaver...


I thoroughly enjoyed all three performances, but the middle one (Dyer/Lamb/Hirano/Acri) affected me the most. I was buzzing as I left the ROH, and I got the impression that most of the (near capacity) audience were similarly affected. This was despite Dyer’s portrayal of Victor lacking the intensity, focus and definition of Bonelli’s, and Lamb’s acting skills not quite the match of Morera’s (though she has come on in leaps and bounds recently – I’m thinking of her superb Larisch in Mayerling last autumn).
The reaction at the end of Act 3 was absolutely thunderous and, on reflection, I think this was down to the majority of the audience (including me) getting caught up in the story that had been gradually (OK, sometimes slowly) building to its climax. There were a couple of telling moments that suggested a lot of us were in there, ‘living’ that onstage drama. The blink-of-an-eye killing of Elizabeth by the creature (a violent spasm that was the culmination of a sustained terrorising that had been playing out, almost in slow motion, for several minutes - including what seemed like Sarah Lamb being swung around by her neck) triggered audible gasps and yelps from the audience around me. The suicide of Victor caused someone to shriek elsewhere in the auditorium – and it didn’t sound like it was just from surprise.


I think Hirano must take much of the credit for this; indeed, his stage-call was met by a roar from the audience that was only matched by that for the orchestra (which played the dissonant, wonderfully atmospheric Liebermann score as well as I have ever heard it). Thinking back, the only audience reaction I can recall being louder (albeit considerably, foot-stompingly louder!) was for the Osipova/Vasiliev Flames of Paris.


I had previously been impressed (at least by the end of the run) by Hirano’s portrayal of Rudolf in Mayerling – and there are possible parallels between the two. Both Rudolf and the Creature are extremely powerful (one politically and the other physically); both lack or have a warped morality; both are ‘outsiders’, having been rejected by those close to them; both crave acceptance/love; both find it difficult to control their pent-up emotions.


Perhaps what gave that last act its power was the incredible dynamic and gulf between Hirano’s Creature and Lamb’s Elizabeth. Both were other-worldly, with the Creature as from the underworld (a manifestation of fearful, unbridled physical power, with Hirano’s stature and muscular frame ideal for the part) and Elizabeth as something heavenly (the character of Elizabeth is ‘pure’ and limitlessly loving, and Lamb just can’t help looking gorgeously ethereal). That contrast made the jeopardy of those last scenes even more pronounced and effective – the ballet equivalent of the peril of Fay Wray in the hands of King Kong. 


I ended up feeling sympathy towards Hirano’s Creature in the same way I felt sympathy for his Rudolf – he was as much a victim of society and a nature he could not control as he was the perpetrator of the deeds for which he was condemned.

 

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18 hours ago, alison said:

 

Not to mention that that was a very long engagement!

 

I didn't have an issue with that because the synopsis said that Victor told Elizabeth he would marry her after he finished his studies. As a standard medical degree is 6 years, & he was presumably taking extra modules on reanimating the dead, then 7 years seems reasonable!

 

2 hours ago, Nogoat said:

I had previously been impressed (at least by the end of the run) by Hirano’s portrayal of Rudolf in Mayerling – and there are possible parallels between the two. Both Rudolf and the Creature are extremely powerful (one politically and the other physically); both lack or have a warped morality; both are ‘outsiders’, having been rejected by those close to them; both crave acceptance/love; both find it difficult to control their pent-up emotions.

 

 

I'm very interested to read this as I saw what I think was Hirano's final Rudolf performances & was unimpressed by his acting & was left unmoved by the final suicide. (I then saw the cinecast 4 days later & sobbed through the last scene.) It's fascinating how people can have such different reactions to the same performance. I've since seen Hirano in Asphodel Meadows & Don Q & have no issues with his dancing but I still don't think I'll be booking to see him in any big acting roles in a hurry.

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3 hours ago, Nogoat said:

Perhaps what gave that last act its power was the incredible dynamic and gulf between Hirano’s Creature and Lamb’s Elizabeth. Both were other-worldly, with the Creature as from the underworld (a manifestation of fearful, unbridled physical power, with Hirano’s stature and muscular frame ideal for the part) and Elizabeth as something heavenly (the character of Elizabeth is ‘pure’ and limitlessly loving, and Lamb just can’t help looking gorgeously ethereal). That contrast made the jeopardy of those last scenes even more pronounced and effective – the ballet equivalent of the peril of Fay Wray in the hands of King Kong. 

I saw all 3 casts last week and it was the Act3 pdd between Lamb and Hirano at yesterday’s matinee that moved me the most. It was a really extraordinary performance in a ballet I don’t particularly like. Very powerful. 

 

Glad to report that the performance was filmed for Japanese TV. 

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1 hour ago, LinMM said:

Sometimes I think it depends what mood you yourself are in on the night as to how receptive you are to dancers performances and the piece performed.

 

It was my first time seeing the RB live so I was excited for it & Mayerling as a piece I was blown away by plus I was very impressed by all the rest of the cast, so I don't think it was the fault of my mood at the time. I guess there are just some dancers, and singers & actors, you "click" with & others you don't as much. This is one reason why I refuse to book for anything before casts are announced.

 

Oh and one more thought from last night: if it wasn't for the synopsis, in Act 3 was anyone else almost expecting Henry to do a Gurn & go off with Elizabeth when Victor was too busy worrying about the Creature to pay much attention to her?

Edited by Dawnstar
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