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Cast Changes to Nutcracker in Southampton and London :

 

The main change is that Francesco Gabriele Frola has now been taken out of Nutcracker this season. I don't currently have the information regarding the reason/s why. He is still cast to dance in Giselle, however. (I didn't get any email - I just happened to be checking the ENB website for something else and noticed it). 

 

The result is that several casts on a number of dates have changed, moving some principal/senior dancers forward. Erik Woolhouse will be partnering Frola's scheduled partner Ivana Bueno instead, in addition to his performances with Shiori Kase. 

 

For opening night in Southampton tomorrow, Fernanda Oliveira and Aitor Arrieta will dance Clara and Nephew, with Henry Dowden as Nutcracker and James Streeter as Drosselmeyer,  replacing Bueno/Frola/Nakaaki/Reimair respectively. Sangeun Lee, Gareth Haw, Junor Souza and Fabian Reimair will now dance on Oliveira & Arrieta's original show of 30 November (evening) instead. There are other cast changes for the other Southampton performances.

 

For London Coliseum, which was to have been opened by Bueno/Frola/ Nakaaki/Reimair, the opening night and presumably press night cast on 14 December will now be Lee/Haw/ Souza/Reimair.

 

Ivana Bueno will no longer dance Clara in Southampton but will instead dance her first Clara of the season on 17 November (NB this isn't her debut as Clara- she has already danced the role last season). 

 

If members and readers bought tickets for Nutcracker with specific cast members in mind, it's best to check the casting for your show on the ENB website at www.ballet.org.uk as the cast and date swaps are too numerous for me to copy it all here. There may be further cast changes throughout the run due to injury, illness or other unforeseen circumstances of course 

Edited by Emeralds
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4 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

Oh dear, that doesn't bode well. I'm not seeing The Nutcracker but had booked to see him in Giselle.

Ditto...I am so looking forward to seeing him so keeping everything crossed for a full and extremely speedy recovery.

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3 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

Oh dear, that doesn't bode well. I'm not seeing The Nutcracker but had booked to see him in Giselle.

If it helps reassure you he has one month and two weeks before his first performance, Dawnstar 🙂 (I booked to see him too, so I too hope it's not anything major that takes ages to heal or requires extensive treatment....) 

Am crossing fingers too, @Sim 🍀 🍀 🍀 

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The revised casting, most of which appears related to Frola’s withdrawal 😢, was notified to Friends last week with a note to say that the news would be promulgated more widely.

 

I expected something formal to issue imminently and this, combined with the number of changes, made me decide against doing my own list for BCF.

 

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1 hour ago, capybara said:

The revised casting, most of which appears related to Frola’s withdrawal 😢, was notified to Friends last week with a note to say that the news would be promulgated more widely.

 

I expected something formal to issue imminently and this, combined with the number of changes, made me decide against doing my own list for BCF.

 

And yet, also a Friend but didn't receive any info. ENB comms can be incredibly hit and miss.

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Comparing the casting now on ENB's website with that on the first page of this thread it looks like not only has Frola been replaced by Erik Woolhouse but also Fernando Carratala Coloma has been replaced by Daniel McCormick, and Ken Saruhashi and Edvinas Jakonis have swapped partners. So there must presumably be more issues than just Frola being injured to required that many Nephew changes.

 

While I will be very disappointed if Frola can't recover in time for Giselle, I believe this is the first time he's been injured, or at least injured enough to have to miss performances, since 2018 so he's done pretty well at ENB up until now. (Certainly better than Corrales, who I gather he effectively replaced, has done at the RB in the same time period.)

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2 hours ago, Dawnstar said:

Oh dear, that doesn't bode well. I'm not seeing The Nutcracker but had booked to see him in Giselle.


 

 

2 hours ago, Sim said:

Ditto...I am so looking forward to seeing him so keeping everything crossed for a full and extremely speedy recovery.

 

And me - to both quotes!

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An email has just arrived from ENB which mentions there are Nutcracker cast changes but it just gives a link to the website rather than specifying what changes have happened. Also the info is rather buried among a bunch of other news, info & advertising. I don't know if they've sent/will send separate cast change emails to ticket holders with more detailed information.

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In fact I had an ENB email at 15.42 this afternoon and nothing whatsoever which would indicate you might need to check the website for cast changes! 
I’ve also not received anything about Friends renewal which is due tomorrow!! 

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6 minutes ago, LinMM said:

In fact I had an ENB email at 15.42 this afternoon and nothing whatsoever which would indicate you might need to check the website for cast changes!

 

Are you sure your email didn't have anything about cast changes because I would assume that's the same email I received (at 15.44) & the cast change info is a small paragraph lurking about three-quarters of the way down. I would probably have overlooked it if I hadn't been looking out for it.

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12 minutes ago, LinMM said:

In fact I had an ENB email at 15.42 this afternoon and nothing whatsoever which would indicate you might need to check the website for cast changes! 
I’ve also not received anything about Friends renewal which is due tomorrow!! 


you may need to scroll down to find it:

 

 “

CASTING

There have been several updates to Principal casting for our Nutcracker performances at the London Coliseum, due to injury. Please see our website for daily Principal casting: all casting is subject to change, so in future please refer here for the latest information.

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Oh yes, ha, I got the email at 3.30pm, about 4 hours after I posted the info here. The email is titled "Unique insights into Mary Skeaping's Giselle" but is crammed amid lots of other announcements about classes, events, etc as well as the brief line abour injury resulting in casting changes. Perhaps they should spilt it into separate emails next time. 

 

Poor Fernando Carratala Coloma- yes, like Frola, he is out of Nutcracker now but still down for Albrecht (which would be a debut for him), so hopefully he too will be recovered in time for his performances of Giselle. 🍀 🍀 🍀 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ivana and Aitor had a very successful run of  performances in Cinderella this summer when she replaced Emma Hawes at short notice. They make a good partnership so that looks like a logical substitution, although Aitor has other scheduled performances partnering Fernanda Oliveira; hopefully he will stay well and not fall ill nor sustain any injuries himself. 

 

0Erik Woolhouse's original scheduled  performances with Shiori Kase starting later in the run are still unchanged so hopefully whatever illness or injury Erik has sustained is shortlived and he will recover quickly enough to allow him to dance on his original dates.  

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2 hours ago, PeterS said:


Erik was on very fine form as the Cossack at last night’s general rehearsal. I hope he didn’t sustain an injury. 

He was indeed! An exceptional dancer, sublime in the Cossack role! I do hope that he will swiftly recover! 

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5 hours ago, PeterS said:

Erik was on very fine form as the Cossack at last night’s general rehearsal. I hope he didn’t sustain an injury. 

 

If the rehearsal was yesterday evening then that would be after ENB's cast change post yesterday morning, so the cast change must therefore presumably be due to something other than injury.

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