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Who to see in RB Manon?


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16 minutes ago, Bluebird said:

 

Out of interest, do you mind if I ask where you were sitting for £11 in 2017?   The current £18 Manon tickets cover the amphitheatre areas that I've always sat in.  Before the recent increase in prices,  seats in these areas had, for some years, been priced at £15, £16 or £17 for full length evening ballets .   Are you maybe talking about the late lamented cheaper matinée tickets? 

 

I don’t mind at all! The exact seat was B-79 in the Amphi (one of the front amphi sides block with a restricted view) and it was indeed a matinee ticket, though I’m fairly sure the price difference between that and the evening performances would only have been £2 or £3.

 

I think for full length ballets the Petipa classics have been a bit more expensive for a while: in the same season I had tickets for Swan Lake in the same band - though the front side amphi seats themselves were reclassified upwards for this production - and the price was £16 and £17 for matinee and evening respectively.

 

(In case this is of any interest, in the same season and same area, Giselle was £12 and £14 and a matinee of Sylvia was £12. A  mixed bill from the joint company MacMillan season was £6.)

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On 02/10/2019 at 08:01, bridiem said:

 

The students I know are back. And when I was a student in London, nothing stopped me going to ballet/theatre/concerts etc!

 

Oxford students aren’t - 0th week starts next week. 

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29 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

I don’t mind at all! The exact seat was B-79 in the Amphi (one of the front amphi sides block with a restricted view) and it was indeed a matinee ticket, though I’m fairly sure the price difference between that and the evening performances would only have been £2 or £3.

 

I think for full length ballets the Petipa classics have been a bit more expensive for a while: in the same season I had tickets for Swan Lake in the same band - though the front side amphi seats themselves were reclassified upwards for this production - and the price was £16 and £17 for matinee and evening respectively.

 

(In case this is of any interest, in the same season and same area, Giselle was £12 and £14 and a matinee of Sylvia was £12. A  mixed bill from the joint company MacMillan season was £6.)

 

Thanks for that information, Lizbie1. I also sit in the front amphi side blocks with restricted view and have just gone back through my ticket confirmations for the first half of 2017. Evening prices for the front side amphi were £16 for Jewels and Mayerling and £17 for  Sleeping Beauty.

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5 minutes ago, Bluebird said:

 

I also sit in the front amphi side blocks with restricted view and have just gone back through my ticket confirmations for the first half of 2017. Evening prices for the front side amphi were £16 for Jewels and Mayerling and £17 for  Sleeping Beauty.

 

Interesting - they may have narrowed the gap between matinee and evening prices for 17/18, before getting rid of it entirely last season. My Jewels matinee ticket in 16/17 was £12 (against your £16 for the evening).

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I’m finding it heartbreaking that last night’s stunning performance was not opened up for young people to see AND that tonight’s, which marks Matthew Ball’s debut, has far, far more empty seats as I write.

Come on, ROH. You need to wake up fast. These wonderful casts are working so hard and deserve a full house.

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Absolutely, capybara- it's a scandal, in fact.

 

This is absolutely wonderful, best- in- the- world dancing, and we are looking at rows of empty seats, the first night of the ballet season ( something I have never seen before) while people with no intention of seeing any performance are playing on their laptops in the foyer.

 

Can this really be the desired outcome of all the money, time and efffort expended by ROH  on new staff and 'strategies' ?

 

Time for a complete re-think.

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4 minutes ago, penelopesimpson said:

Mary, my guess would be that the team responsible for the current situation have departed.  I always wondered what Alex Beard was doing while it was all going on...

 

The problem is that the chickens have now come home to roost. Dreadful.

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The dancers and everyone else working so hard to present these wonderful performances deserve better.  How ironic that they wanted to try to push out the regulars by hiking up the prices, and as always it is the regulars who are continuing to pay increased prices to keep attending the ROH.  If we weren't going there would be a lot more empty places.  Where is the replacement audience they were supposed to be attracting??  Something has clearly failed, at least in this instance. 

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I just wish there was some indication that someone at the ROH was doing something to address the problem. I can't remember ever attending the ROH ( and I've been going for 60 odd years,) and seeing so many empty seats.  There seems to be a general air of nonchalance around. The old days of scrambling to get tickets on the first day of booking seem long gone.

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1 hour ago, capybara said:

I’m finding it heartbreaking that last night’s stunning performance was not opened up for young people to see AND that tonight’s, which marks Matthew Ball’s debut, has far, far more empty seats as I write.

Come on, ROH. You need to wake up fast. These wonderful casts are working so hard and deserve a full house.

 

Could not agree more. Tonight’s performance was not opened up (no pun intended!) to students either. 

 

It’s sad enough that seats are not being sold, but to not have a full house for opening night and especially Ball’s debut is just wrong. 

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I think it's probably also an indirect result of the price rises: although they haven't been as swingeing as for some other ballets, I suspect people are cutting back just so they can afford the rarer ballets Coppelia, Onegin and Sleeping Beauty.  Plus, as someone has already mentioned, the casts haven't exactly thrilled me: there are bits of casts I want to see, but often with other leading dancers who are, shall we say, further down my list of essential dancers to see in this ballet.  So my attitude has often been "Well, I want to see so-and-so, so I'll go and see that cast if a cheap ticket shows up, but not otherwise".

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And here's a novel idea: if appropriate seats are available, they could offer them under the usual conditions to the ambulant disabled members of the Access list who are usually limited to one performance per run (I'm assuming that the wheelchair seats will have sold out).  I know some of them, at least, would appreciate it.

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30 minutes ago, alison said:

the casts haven't exactly thrilled me: there are bits of casts I want to see, but often with other leading dancers who are, shall we say, further down my list of essential dancers to see in this ballet.  So my attitude has often been "Well, I want to see so-and-so, so I'll go and see that cast if a cheap ticket shows up, but not otherwise".

That's exactly what I thought.  I do have tickets (for Núñez/Bolle) but although I'd love to have seen one other des Grieux and one other Manon the partners available just didn't tempt me enough.

Having said that, I can't help noticing that when I buy ballet tickets for performances abroad (which isn't very often) the tickets seem to sell much more quickly so one has to book really early.  And they are just as expensive.  I'd love to be able to analyse the cause of the current problem here in London and Birmingham.  It must be so dispiriting for the dancers and musicians who put so much of themselves into these performances.

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1 hour ago, alison said:

I think it's probably also an indirect result of the price rises: although they haven't been as swingeing as for some other ballets, I suspect people are cutting back just so they can afford the rarer ballets Coppelia, Onegin and Sleeping Beauty.  Plus, as someone has already mentioned, the casts haven't exactly thrilled me: there are bits of casts I want to see, but often with other leading dancers who are, shall we say, further down my list of essential dancers to see in this ballet.  So my attitude has often been "Well, I want to see so-and-so, so I'll go and see that cast if a cheap ticket shows up, but not otherwise".

 

I'm probably showing my inexperience but there are more casts I want to see for Manon than for any other ballet this season. I've booked for 5 casts & it would have been 6 if only Hamilton/Clarke had had a public performance. By contrast, there's only 3 out of the greater number of Swan Lake casts that I really want to see & one of those is the cinecast Cuthbertson/Bracewell pairing so I won't be seeing them live. Admittedly given the relative prices of Manon & Swan Lake it's a better way round financially to want to see more of the former but it probably shows my lack of discernment if experienced ballet viewers have a different view.

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1 hour ago, maryrosesatonapin said:

Having said that, I can't help noticing that when I buy ballet tickets for performances abroad (which isn't very often) the tickets seem to sell much more quickly so one has to book really early.

 

My assumption has always been that London in particular has a much stronger theatre and musical theatre scene than most major cities. Neither interests me particularly, but as they compete for the same market, opera and ballet have to fight harder for the custom of people who want to see something in the evening than in, say, Paris or Munich (and there’s no doubt that theatre is much the more strongly embedded art form in this country).

 

That doesn’t really explain the current dip in sales, but it may be that it is partly because people are spending their money on (very expensive) West End shows instead.

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18 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

 

I'm probably showing my inexperience but there are more casts I want to see for Manon than for any other ballet this season. I've booked for 5 casts & it would have been 6 if only Hamilton/Clarke had had a public performance. By contrast, there's only 3 out of the greater number of Swan Lake casts that I really want to see & one of those is the cinecast Cuthbertson/Bracewell pairing so I won't be seeing them live. Admittedly given the relative prices of Manon & Swan Lake it's a better way round financially to want to see more of the former but it probably shows my lack of discernment if experienced ballet viewers have a different view.

 

Well I'm an experienced ballet viewer and I've booked 4 Manons and was delighted by the casts (though I did think it was far too soon to bring it back so I'm not really surprised it's not selling well). So it's all a matter of personal taste and preference really.

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45 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

My assumption has always been that London in particular has a much stronger theatre and musical theatre scene than most major cities. Neither interests me particularly, but as they compete for the same market, opera and ballet have to fight harder for the custom of people who want to see something in the evening than in, say, Paris or Munich (and there’s no doubt that theatre is much the more strongly embedded art form in this country).

 

 

You should try living in Liverpool - we get one week of ENB a year.  Before the Lowry opened we also used to get BRB and Rambert (they Arts Council "persuaded" them to go to the Lowry as it's a funded venue - the Palace/Opera House in Manchester also lost out).  Sometimes ENB and BRB used to come twice a year!!!

 

The Empire exists almost exclusively on the big touring musicals these days (as do many of the other receiving venues that I go to).  We do have other theatres in Liverpool for drama.

 

I was talking to a duty manager in Birmingham last week who said that some usually guaranteed sell-out musicals were not selling as quickly and he wondered if it was the Brexit effect.

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38 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

was talking to a duty manager in Birmingham last week who said that some usually guaranteed sell-out musicals were not selling as quickly and he wondered if it was the Brexit effect.

I remember around the 1950s when lots of repertory theatres were closing,  it was said that TV was to blame. Nowadays we have umpteen channels, can watch films and tv series at relatively low cost, or free, all without leaving our nice comfy homes and perhaps having to travel on unreliable transport. Or maybe I'm just clutching at straws, but I find the situation worrying.

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5 hours ago, JNC said:

 

Could not agree more. Tonight’s performance was not opened up (no pun intended!) to students either. 

 

It’s sad enough that seats are not being sold, but to not have a full house for opening night and especially Ball’s debut is just wrong. 

I keep getting emails offering £10 student standbys to Opera for DC signed up to the scheme.... not once had offers for ballet when preferences all signed for ballet & (so far) only bought ballet tickets.

have had occsssikbsl ballet in cinema offers.... but only after we’ve already paid full price & these locally tend to be pretty well sold anyway so discounts not really necessary? 

Breaks my heart to think if empty seats greeting these dancers when so many more would go if advantageous prices were offered.....

Out if interest, does anyone on here signed up to young roh scheme ever get offers to buy ballet at ROH?

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I must admit, I'm still very surprised that, given her performances in the role last time around, Francesca Hayward wasn't given the first night of Manon.  I hope some of the critics will manage to go and see other casts during the run.

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2 hours ago, alison said:

I must admit, I'm still very surprised that, given her performances in the role last time around, Francesca Hayward wasn't given the first night of Manon.  I hope some of the critics will manage to go and see other casts during the run.

 

I think that Francesca Hayward may not have been given the first night of Manon because she had that for the last run (albeit as a replacement). She has got the opening night of Coppelia, however. Kevin O'Hare is, I think, very careful in the way he divvies these things up!

But I agree with you about the critics. I actually thought that some of them would opt for Matthew Ball's debut last night.

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