Royal Ballet Spring 2024

[OnePigeon]

10 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

 

I've always tended to like looking sideways on so I really like the view from those seats on the front row.  I first started sitting there when it was all I could get at the front and now they would be my preference.  They have been cheaper since I discovered them about 10 years ago.

That’s great to know, thanks.  I was lucky enough to be in the stalls last night and was thinking the front seats might be good as the orchestra pit gives a good amount of space from the stage.  I might give them a go if I get the chance.

[Dawnstar]

31 minutes ago, OnePigeon said:

You’re right - I forgot about the small amount of slightly cheaper seats at the front to the side.  I’ve never tried one of them as I worry about the view being too close, but maybe they’re worth a try.  I’m not sure if they have always been slightly cheaper, or if it’s a more recent thing?  I don’t recall seeing them as an option when I used to regularly sit in the stalls around 15-20 years ago.

 

8 minutes ago, OnePigeon said:

That’s great to know, thanks.  I was lucky enough to be in the stalls last night and was thinking the front seats might be good as the orchestra pit gives a good amount of space from the stage.  I might give them a go if I get the chance.

 

I loved them for the very brief period of time when I could afford them, before the abolition of package booking & major price rises put them well out of my reach. (I'd never sat there before 2018 as I could never afford them for opera so I only had 3 years when I could afford them, & half of that time the ROH was shut for covid!) It depends on what you want from a view for ballet though. Feet are likely to not be fully visible, depending on your height. I will happily take being able to see the acting close-to over being able to see the feet, but I know some people would never sit there because they want to be able to see the feet.

[capybara]

47 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

I loved them for the very brief period of time when I could afford them, before the abolition of package booking & major price rises put them well out of my reach. (I'd never sat there before 2018 as I could never afford them for opera so I only had 3 years when I could afford them, & half of that time the ROH was shut for covid!) It depends on what you want from a view for ballet though. Feet are likely to not be fully visible, depending on your height. I will happily take being able to see the acting close-to over being able to see the feet, but I know some people would never sit there because they want to be able to see the feet.

These seats (well, the first three rows ) used to be cheaper because parts of feet were cut off. But now, except behind the conductor and for seats at the extreme edges, there is no difference between them and the most expensive areas of the stalls.

[Dawnstar]

It's the seats at the extreme edges, A1-2 and 28-29, that my previous post is primarily referring to, as those were the seats I booked when able to do so on account of them being somewhat cheaper than the more central seats.

[AnticaFiamma]

1 hour ago, Emeralds said:

A relative who now qualifies for Young ROH tells me that all the seats (barring the ones that are £29 or less) still unsold for Wed 23 Oct (Anemoi/Cellist double bill) have now been offered to Young ROH for £30. All 700 of them. If I didn't see the screenshot I wouldn't have believed it but it's  true.

 

That may sound like a great bargain for Young ROH members but in reality it's not. Unlike the Barclays Dance Pass at Sadler's Wells, you can't book it for yourself and an older or younger attendee- if you book two tickets the other attendee has to be a Young ROH member too. Not all your peers will want to sign up for something they might only want to see once. £30 is a massive sum of money for a lot of sixth formers, college students, or young workers who are feeling the pinch of high rents and costs of living. The double bill could be a pleasant midweek family outing  but that means one person pays £30, but the cost for parents are the £67 to £110 tickets unless they don't sit together-which is not exactly a fun night out. So I asked my relatives if they're going-they said no, despite the apparent "bargain" of £110 reduced to £30 for 1 of the tickets. 

 

The problem is that original prices of the tickets are simply too high. It also doesn't make a  tempting offer if you have to pay £110 for your younger child while your older child gets in for £30. (I'm using the  £110 tickets as an example because they have to sell 230 of them, at the moment.)

 

And from the viewpoint of ROH needing ti fill the auditorium, are they likely to find over 700 young people aged 16-30 who want to go out on their own (or find a likeminded friend who has also signed up) for a £30 ticket with 5 days to go? (bearing in mind ENO and Wigmore Hall are offering young people free tickets and Royal Festival Hall orchestras £5-£8 tickets). I doubt it. Yet if they do, they're losing £80 (over 70%) per £110.

 

Are they really going to continue these money-losing policies and fan-alienating prices for the next three months? Looks like they are. Not looking good for that deficit. 

It's even worse, Young ROH doesn't even cover people aged between 25 and 30, it stops at 25! You need to be extremely young and they have raised the cost from 25£ to 30£ as well.

[Linnzi5]

Wow. The seats I like for Swan Lake  have increased in price by £30 from two years ago! Come on ROH! 😡

Edited October 20, 2023 by Linnzi5

[San Perregrino]

24 minutes ago, AnticaFiamma said:

Young ROH doesn't even cover people aged between 25 and 30, it stops at 25

Perhaps I’m out of touch. To my mind, I’d say that ´Young’ probably does reasonably stop at 25. Most people aged 25 & over will have finished school, done a degree, likely a Masters too if they do chose, perhaps with a gap year thrown in and/or have worked an unpaid internship and be in paid employment, quite often their second job since starting work.
Discounts for pensioners and/or Union members such as Equity or the MU are a thing of the past. At the ROH we scrabble for the few Friday Rush tickets available. Sadlers Wells used to have a £15 one hour before curtain up all-comers Standby Ticket Scheme that has been sacrificed to the Barclays 18-30 scheme. 
I think any discounts offered over the age of 25 should be available to all comers eg via an App such as TodayTix Daily Rush or direct from the Box Office. 
Also if younger patrons weren’t bombarded with social media images featuring expensive glasses of champagne quaffed in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, perhaps they wouldn’t subliminally think one has to have champagne or the night wouldn’t be complete. Without a glass of whatever a night out starts to become far more reasonable. With tickets discounted so deeply chances are that the glass of champagne will be more expensive than the ticket. Aha he thinks, perhaps the profit margin on a glass of bubbly is greater than that on a ticket sale….? Is this the ROH masterplan??

[capybara]

If the offer to Young ROH members is for Weds. 23rd., it hasn't made much of a dent in the sales - not so far, at least.

[Emeralds]

9 hours ago, AnticaFiamma said:

It's even worse, Young ROH doesn't even cover people aged between 25 and 30, it stops at 25! You need to be extremely young and they have raised the cost from 25£ to 30£ as well.

Thanks, @AnticaFiamma- I think they got ROH & Sadler's Wells mixed up. You are right of course: it's age 16-25 for Young ROH, and 16-30 for Dance Pass at Sadler's Wells.

 

I  don't know why the ROH box office team don't just offer 50% off to all Friends who have already paid their dues in membership fees and clearly have loyalty to ROH. plus previous interest in ballet/opera/both. They should also offer all who have booked this season (including for this double bill) but who are  not Friends 25% off all prices. And allow Friends & this season's bookers to buy up to 4 tickets, not just one per member. For crying out loud, for Wednesday they currently have  1,200 seats unsold. Thursday has over 720 unsold. I dare not check the rest of the dates! 

 

Interesting note: I remember when Chroma premiered in 2006 (very few  knew a lot about McGregor then) on a bill with Balanchine's Four Temperaments and Wheeldon's DGV: Danse Gramd Vitesse. Without knowing what the casting was going to be, they were hesitant if it would sell so they decided to offer the top price seating (Grand Tier, top price Orchestra Stalls & Stalls Circle) at £40 (which in today's terms is £65 to £72 depending on which inflation calculator you use). Certainly sales were a bit slow at first (I had no idea who this McGregor was but decided to go for it since the Grand Tier hadn't been £40 for a very long time)...then as Bussell, Acosta, Nunez, Rojo, Cojocaru, Yanowsky, Watson, Galeazzi, Bonelli, etc etc were confirmed in the cast, the seats started going fast until the dates were sold out. £72 versus £110 - and the casts for Anemoi/Cellist do not have the equivalent of Bussell, Acosta, Nunez etc etc so the sales need a boost. (I did mention when casting was announced that they would have trouble selling at these prices).

Edited October 21, 2023 by Emeralds

[Richard LH]

20 hours ago, capybara said:

Obviously, there has been a 'special offer' for the double bill for Saturday but, from Monday onwards, the situation remains dire. I have never seen anything like the chart is showing for next Wednesday and the 1st Nov and the nights featuring more 'star names' are not much better. 

 I see this as a problem of overpricing for what is essentially a mediocre double bill which, if staged at all, would have been better staged in the Linbury, as someone else said. Personally I wouldn't have attended this programme even at discounted prices, bearing in mind travelling costs can't be avoided even if tickets are given away, and for me the money saved will be better spent on other upcoming productions.

[Emeralds]

Ouch! Linbury (but I do know what you both mean)....the problem is where to fit the full orchestra for the Rachmaninov symphony, the Elgar Cello Concerto etc on  the small Linbury stage. Basically it's a programme that should have had just 3 performances, like last year's Diamond gala. 2 with the first cast, 1 with the second cast, over 2 weekends. It probably wasn't a great idea either to stage it during the two weeks where it's directly competing against Hayward and Campbell on the same nights in a new work [with lower prices]. 

[Benjamin]

It would have been so easy to throw in Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux after Anemoi with a popular cast and have a sell out! It’s only 10 minutes and yes, they did it in 2021, but that’s not a good enough excuse.

[Richard LH]

5 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Ouch! Linbury (but I do know what you both mean)....the problem is where to fit the full orchestra for the Rachmaninov symphony, the Elgar Cello Concerto etc on  the small Linbury stage. Basically it's a programme that should have had just 3 performances, like last year's Diamond gala. 2 with the first cast, 1 with the second cast, over 2 weekends. It probably wasn't a great idea either to stage it during the two weeks where it's directly competing against Hayward and Campbell on the same nights in a new work [with lower prices]. 

Fair point re. the orchestra.

The fact that as posted elsewhere, it's a programme of only 2 hours including the interval, surely can't help....couldn't they have included a third work as well?

[Emeralds]

8 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Fair point re. the orchestra.

The fact that as posted elsewhere, it's a programme of only 2 hours including the interval, surely can't help....couldn't they have included a third work as well?

Indeed - it definitely needs a third short ballet or even just two pas de deux, such as the  Tchaikovsky pdd that @Benjamin suggests, or an Ashton or MacMillan (I favour Thais or Solitaire, as those two have not been danced in a while). Or Voices of Spring, which always cheers everyone up. 

[FionaM]

😳 The Swan Lake prices … ouch

 

Count me out.  
 

I saw 3 excellent casts in Amsterdam for €90 top price earlier this year.  
 

I will be going to ENB at RAH … top price £114.50.   Dates overlap with ROH !!  And most of the casting for ENB is already known.  I am interested in both Laurretta Summerscales and Sangeun Lee plus maybe some younger debuts yet to be announced.  

[Sophoife]

10 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Fair point re. the orchestra.

The fact that as posted elsewhere, it's a programme of only 2 hours including the interval, surely can't help....couldn't they have included a third work as well?

 

Hunh. That's something I've been complaining about since this year's AusBallet programme was revealed 12 months or more ago.

 

The November Ashton programme is just The Dream and Marguerite and Armand with one 25-minute interval.

 

Full price for "best" seats $333, $343 for Saturday nights, roughly £175. Some of these seats are so far back you need binoculars to see the footwork or even to identify the faces.

 

That's for 55 minutes plus 35 minutes of dance, 1 hour 30 minutes.

 

In 2017 the Royal Ballet presented these same two ballets, with Symphonic Variations in the middle. At that time when I asked him at stage door what thoughts he had when setting the programme, Kevin O'Hare told me that without the third ballet in the middle the evening would have been too short to justify charging full price. Pity he didn't ring up or Zoom David Hallberg to say the same thing!!! 😠

[capybara]

14 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

In 2017 the Royal Ballet presented these same two ballets, with Symphonic Variations in the middle. At that time when I asked him at stage door what thoughts he had when setting the programme, Kevin O'Hare told me that without the third ballet in the middle the evening would have been too short to justify charging full price. Pity he didn't ring up or Zoom David Hallberg to say the same thing!!! 😠

 

Or apply the same thinking to the double bill currently playing at the ROH.

[Emeralds]

40 minutes ago, FionaM said:

😳 The Swan Lake prices … ouch

 

Count me out.  
 

I saw 3 excellent casts in Amsterdam for €90 top price earlier this year.  
 

I will be going to ENB at RAH … top price £114.50.   Dates overlap with ROH !!  And most of the casting for ENB is already known.  I am interested in both Laurretta Summerscales and Sangeun Lee plus maybe some younger debuts yet to be announced.  

I notice that just like last season's ENB Swan Lake vs RB Sleeping Beauty, there is an overlap of the two companies doing the Tchaikovsky classics again: last season's  "Battle of the Tchaikovsky classics" will be this June's "Battle of the Swan Lakes" and it's interesting that once again RB has pitched their prices significantly higher (after ENB's pricing was already known). Will be interesting to see if Swan Lake proves to be as slump-proof fot RB as it generally is everywhere.

 

I've seen Nutcrackers in competition before but hardly ever Swan Lakes. That said, June tends to be a tough sell for all theatre productions so I guess if there's any time to trot out a Swan Lake, June would be the time.

 

FWIW I thought RAH Swan Lake prices were a bit steep for me as RAH usually is for Swan Lake (the extra cygnets, pas de trois couples and Swan maidens need to be paid of course), although the weekends are selling very well, even with the slightly higher prices.  I've booked one. Whether I book any RB Swan Lakes depends on the  casting. 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Emeralds

[Emeralds]

25 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

 

Hunh. That's something I've been complaining about since this year's AusBallet programme was revealed 12 months or more ago.

 

The November Ashton programme is just The Dream and Marguerite and Armand with one 25-minute interval.

 

Full price for "best" seats $333, $343 for Saturday nights, roughly £175. Some of these seats are so far back you need binoculars to see the footwork or even to identify the faces.

 

That's for 55 minutes plus 35 minutes of dance, 1 hour 30 minutes.

 

In 2017 the Royal Ballet presented these same two ballets, with Symphonic Variations in the middle. At that time when I asked him at stage door what thoughts he had when setting the programme, Kevin O'Hare told me that without the third ballet in the middle the evening would have been too short to justify charging full price. Pity he didn't ring up or Zoom David Hallberg to say the same thing!!! 😠

That was my first thought when that bill was announced too, @Sophoife- I thought, "where is the  third ballet? The Royal Ballet did those two ballets with Symphonic Variations!" Maybe with a few emails, David Hallberg might be persuaded to add in a middle ballet. Or at least a pas de deux! 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Emeralds

[Sophoife]

12 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

That was my first thought when that bill was announced too, @Sophoife- I thought, "where is the  third ballet? The Royal Ballet did those two ballets with Symphonic Variations!" Maybe with a few emails, David Hallberg might be persuaded to add in a middle ballet. Or at least a pas de deux! 

 

Oh I've mentioned it several times. In person. No chance, particularly as Ashton is very thin on the ground over here so nothing else is prepared.

 

The most recent Ashton programme here was Monotones II, Symphonic Variations, and The Dream, in 2015. Of the three, Monotones II had last been seen here in 1979, Symphonic Variations was a company première, and The Dream had been last shown here in 1980.

 

As with 2015 Christopher Carr has set the Shakespeare.

 

We were supposed to get A Month in the Country in 2020. No sign of it on the horizon.

 

We haven't had a full-length Ashton (Fille since you ask and no, Peregrine did not appear due to Australia's animal quarantine laws) since 2004.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Sophoife
Added Christopher Carr

[Amanda Liu]

Vadim and Fumi will be guesting in Swan Lake in Rome next year and the top price is €75!

[Scheherezade]

2 hours ago, Amanda Liu said:

Vadim and Fumi will be guesting in Swan Lake in Rome next year and the top price is €75!

I feel a trip to Rome coming on. 

[Emeralds]

2 hours ago, Sophoife said:

 

Oh I've mentioned it several times. In person. No chance, particularly as Ashton is very thin on the ground over here so nothing else is prepared.

 

The most recent Ashton programme here was Monotones II, Symphonic Variations, and The Dream, in 2015. Of the three, Monotones II had last been seen here in 1979, Symphonic Variations was a company première, and The Dream had been last shown here in 1980.

 

As with 2015 Christopher Carr has set the Shakespeare.

 

We were supposed to get A Month in the Country in 2020. No sign of it on the horizon.

 

We haven't had a full-length Ashton (Fille since you ask and no, Peregrine did not appear due to Australia's animal quarantine laws) since 2004.

 

 

Oh! In that case they could surely add Symphonic Variations in since it would still be quite familiar? If it sounds bad that Australian Ballet hasn't  had a full length  Ashton for some time, neither did Royal Ballet: As The Two Pigeons doesn't count as full length (since it is only 70 minutes long) then RB didn't have a full length Ashton Ballet during Jan 2018 to Feb 2023 ieñ (last one Sylvia Dec 2017, then 5 years and a month till Cinderella in late March this year). I wasn't going to ask but couldn't they use Aussie ponies?

Edited October 21, 2023 by Emeralds

[Silver Capricorn]

2 hours ago, Scheherezade said:

I feel a trip to Rome coming on. 

I already have tickets 😁!

[Sophoife]

1 hour ago, Emeralds said:

Oh! In that case they could surely add Symphonic Variations in since it would still be quite familiar? If it sounds bad that Australian Ballet hasn't  had a full length  Ashton for some time, neither did Royal Ballet: As The Two Pigeons doesn't count as full length (since it is only 70 minutes long) then RB didn't have a full length Ashton Ballet during Jan 2018 to Feb 2023 ieñ (last one Sylvia Dec 2017, then 5 years and a month till Cinderella in late March this year). I wasn't going to ask but couldn't they use Aussie ponies?

 

Symphonic Variations was last performed here in 2015, eight years ago.  Of the 15 dancers cast overall, only Ako Kondo, Brett Chynoweth, Dimity Azoury, Robyn Hendricks (all now principals) and Amanda McGuigan are still dancing with the company - and after ten years with the company following RBS and three seasons each at ABT then HNB, McGuigan is still a coryphée. All the others have retired.

 

Even Monotones II with only three dancers in each cast has just two available: Jared Wright (went back to HNB, now retired), Natasha Kusen (retired), Brett Simon (retired), Brodie James (still with the company), Amanda McGuigan (see above), and Richard House (went to Sarasota, now with Semperoperballett Dresden).

 

Of course we used Aussie ponies, but Peregrine is an Icon Of The Stage 😉

[JNC]

@Emeralds I agree with your post about £30 being too much for the offers for students - when I was young ROH I used to pick things up for £10. It may be “good value” if you consider the seats are “worth” (!) double or £100+ but the point is students etc wouldn’t have paid that much and so it’s only a cheap price and not having last minute plans that would make them sway to something they’re not really keen to attend (otherwise they’d already be booking tickets separately, and certainly not in those areas). 
 

what a shambles all round. 

[JNC]

On 21/10/2023 at 08:08, Richard LH said:

Personally I wouldn't have attended this programme even at discounted prices, bearing in mind travelling costs can't be avoided even if tickets are given away, and for me the money saved will be better spent on other upcoming productions.

I think this is a really obvious post ROH haven’t considered. Their current marketing seems to be “rip off” for the classical productions they think will sell well (Swan Lake, Nutcracker, and for some reason putting DQ and Manon in here too) to maybe “subsidise” new work or “heritage” pieces they don’t think will be as popular (proven wrong with the Ashton bill!). 
 

Of course this is now backfiring with people seeing fewer of the more expensive productions, and at the same time not bothering with the newer revivals as well. Back in the day if I lived in London and the Anemoi bill was priced lower, and if everything else was, I’d probably go out of loyalty and to see new casts. I don’t live in London anymore so I didn’t ever consider it but if even if I did as @Richard LH I wouldn’t bother as I’d save my money for things I’d really want to see given I can’t afford it all!

[Linnzi5]

5 minutes ago, JNC said:

@Emeralds I agree with your post about £30 being too much for the offers for students - when I was young ROH I used to pick things up for £10. It may be “good value” if you consider the seats are “worth” (!) double or £100+ but the point is students etc wouldn’t have paid that much and so it’s only a cheap price and not having last minute plans that would make them sway to something they’re not really keen to attend (otherwise they’d already be booking tickets separately, and certainly not in those areas). 
 

what a shambles all round. 

The thing that worries me, is that if ROH has a huge hole in its budget (probably because of Covid and then the cost of living crisis) that if it's not getting anything like the ticket prices for the performances it needs to fill that hole, then surely the deficit is just going to get worse? I don't see why I should pay extortionate prices when others get seats like mine for a minuscule percentage of the price of my tickets. I'm not prepared to subsidise that. If prices were more realistic (considering what's going on in the world) then maybe more would buy full-price tickets? Looking at the price of Swan Lake, I am, frankly, appalled at the price increase for seats I would usually buy. 

[art_enthusiast]

On 20/10/2023 at 23:14, PeterS said:

Also if younger patrons weren’t bombarded with social media images featuring expensive glasses of champagne quaffed in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, perhaps they wouldn’t subliminally think one has to have champagne or the night wouldn’t be complete. Without a glass of whatever a night out starts to become far more reasonable. 

 

Exactly - as a young person the idea of going out and paying to drink alcohol is completely baffling to me. It's better to save money and drink some Tesco Value wine in your own house.

 

I would only do it in particular countries where it's significantly cheaper to purchase, but even then I'd be more likely to go to a supermarket and get one of those very cheap plastic cartons of wine which I might sip in the interval only.

[Tango Dancer]

16 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

 

Exactly - as a young person the idea of going out and paying to drink alcohol is completely baffling to me. It's better to save money and drink some Tesco Value wine in your own house.

 

I would only do it in particular countries where it's significantly cheaper to purchase, but even then I'd be more likely to go to a supermarket and get one of those very cheap plastic cartons of wine which I might sip in the interval only.

 

I do sometimes have a glass of sparkling wine before a performance (especially at the Birmingham Hippodrome because the bar is so nice and I'm usually staying in a hotel so I'm there in plenty of time and it's nice to sit, watch people and remember going to Nutcracker with my grandmother there as a child) but it's more often a thing I do in Germany because the wine there is much cheaper. 

 

I certainly didn't when I was in my 20s because I couldn't afford it at the time.  I probably wouldn't do at the Opera House now even if I could because it's so expensive there.   

[San Perregrino]

1 hour ago, Emeralds said:

since ROH management seems to be throwing money away wantonly this season.

@Emeralds may I ask what are you referring to? 

Edited October 22, 2023 by PeterS

[Emeralds]

14 minutes ago, PeterS said:

@Emeralds may I ask what are you referring to? 

The situation with the Don Q and Anemoi double bill where instead of offering reasonably discounted tickets (eg 25%, 30% off in all areas to Friends and current non-Friend patrons (ie people who have booked ballets this season but are not Friends) who are the most likely to buy up tickets when sales are poor to fill up half empty houses, they are slashing them by up to 70% for Young ROH or up to 88% (£12.50 for friends of staff). A few comps or discounted tickets to staff who don't get paid a lot is reasonable. But carrying this out for so many tickets at so many performances is mismanagement. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Emeralds

[San Perregrino]

11 hours ago, Emeralds said:

But carrying this out for so many tickets at so many performances is mismanagement.

@Emeralds We all have our views on the current pricing model however this is quite an accusation. 
Can you tell me how many performances are affected and how many tickets? 

 

11 hours ago, Emeralds said:

Anemoi double bill where instead of offering reasonably discounted tickets (eg 25%, 30% off in all areas to Friends and current non-Friend patrons (ie people who have booked ballets this season but are not Friends) who are the most likely to buy up tickets

I know of one offer of 25% discount on top 5 price bands for the first 3 performances of Anemoi/The Cellist that went to people who had previously booked a ballet at the ROH. This would seem to be, at least in part, what you wanted?

If the uptake wasn’t sufficient then I suppose this or another offer was extended to others.

(It’s the same principle that is applied in my local supermarket as the use by date of a product gets closer. Discounts get greater the closer one gets to having to take the product off the shelves.)

Edited October 23, 2023 by PeterS
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