The Company or the Star

[alison]

capybara, isn't Nancy down to dance on *Thursday* and Saturday evenings? (Btw, is Zdenek not dancing at all? Shame, as he's supposed to be so good in SoaW)

 

There's a Thursday performance?  Oh good, I was wondering how I was ever going to manage to see this bill, given that I've got athletics on Friday and other commitments on the Saturday.

 

Sorry for going OT, but I'd obviously got my dates confused.

[Irmgard]

Oh that's interesting about the ticket prices DiL.  I wonder what would have happened if he had been injured and unable to perform; what would the audience think about the inflated prices?

 

Actually, I suppose one of the facts of being a ballet-watcher is that you can never guarantee that you will see who you may have specifically booked to see. 

 

I have sometimes heard adverse comments in the audience when this has happened but most people seem accepting.

With regard to what happens when a superstar is unable to perform, several years ago Domingo was scheduled to sing a role in "Tamerlano" at the Opera House but had to cancel due to an emergency operation.  The ROH notified all ticket-holders that the 'surcharge' for a Domingo performance would be refunded to their cards and so it was.  It didn't really matter to me as I had not booked to see him but to see my friend who was singing the title role!  The refund was, however, gratefully received!  As the ROH, or indeed any performing arts company, is not obliged to offer refunds for cast changes, it was a very nice gesture (and probably pre-empted a shedload of complaints!).

This is an interesting point about the Company or the Star.  A couple of years ago I asked Wayne Eagling why the casting for ENB performances was announced so late and he said it was his great hope that people would come to see the company as a whole, rather than particular dancers, which showed his faith in the company at all levels.  This is a fine sentiment and seems to work well for a lot of first-time and occasional balletgoers but people who watch companies on a regular basis inevitably develop preferences for certain dancers in certain roles and I am glad to see that Tamara Rojo announces casting slightly sooner than Wayne did so that it is easier to plan which performances to attend.(It also helps the dancers so that they can book tickets for their friends and families.) I find it is not such an issue with mixed bills, certainly not those including 'Sacre' or 'Etudes,' to think of a couple of recent programmes, where I go to see the work because the Company is the Star.  It was the same when I attended many Royal Ballet performances years ago - for the full-length works I liked to book for certain dancers but was happy to just book for the programme when it came to mixed bills.

[jmhopton]

I echo everything Quintus says about cost of travel, accommodation etc being a factor in selecting what ballets/stars to see in London. When I booked my 4 performances for Onegin last spring the price of the theatre tickets paled into insignificance compared with the travel/accommodation costs. Don't believe anything you hear about cheap train travel being available 3 months in advance. it seldom seems to apply days I want to travel. it usually means the bus which is a 5 hour journey each way; that and anything from £50 (amazingly cheap) and £100 (more usual) for one night's accommodation usually prices me out of the market for anything but the most exceptional performances however much I may want to see a particular ballet or star. This is one reason I'm so grateful for Kevin O'Hare scheduling more matinees. If you don't have to stay overnight it makes ballet much more accessible.

[Minxette]

Both are important to me.  However, a piece of work may be interpreted very differently by different artists.  For example, I'd pay to see John Lennon perform "Imagine", but not One Direction!  That's a silly example but illustrates the point that the same choreographic work can be performed to different standards by various artists.

 

As well as having favourite dancers, I also have a blacklist where by I specficically avoid performances because of certain dancers.  Don't forget we are paying customers at the end of day, so are entitled to pick and chose what we spend our money on.

[MAB]

Without mentioning names, a friend and I once booked to see our favourite in Moscow, but after having booked flights, hotel and visas, we heard the date of said favourite's performance had had to be changed due to a rehearsal in St Pete's the following morning.  Could have been a disaster, but on hearing what had happened our dancer (at some inconvenience) changed back to the original date and caught the overnight train to St Pete's right after the performance.  After all that stress we did however witness the performance of a lifetime.

 

Moral of the story however is that best laid plans do go awry and most people wouldn't be as lucky as we were: often you must take what you get.

[Dancefan]

I want to know who your favourite is though! That sounds quite a preference...

[LinMM]

What a generous gesture that dancer made....very unusual but nice....MAB

 

I Sympathise totally with people trying to see performances in London. But Advanced fares are worth getting organised for.

I only live in Brighton and there is a range of travel prices even from there!

 

For example and this is using my senior railcard which is similar to a network card but if I book in advance and am prepared to book certain trains eg: can only travel on the 10.19 say and return the next day on the 20.36 say then Imcan do this for an incredible £3-10 each way!! However as happened the other week missed the train I was supposed to be on then I had to pay £16-50 just for the single fare!!(so that turned out to be £19-60 for that journey

 

These advance fares are only available on Southern Rail.

But if I want to travel by Capital First Connect which goes from Brighton to Bedford via St.Pancras International and London Bridge then the day return fare is £9-50 with railcard and about £13-14 for an ordinary return so,cheaper than Southern Rail but doesn't do such good daily deals.

 

Next week I'm going up to York for a few days as my friends daughter is doing the summer school there and I got a brilliant deal on this fare....booked as soon as the advanced fares were released......so they are definitely worth investigating.....though I did think that you have to book in person at a station I'm not sure if you can get these really cheap ones online.

Last year I did a return fare to Cornwall for about £24!! This year I left it too late and have just paid £65....still not the full fare but its first come first served and the fares go up nearer the time of travel which is why if you turn up on the day they are so ridiculously extortionate. Probably over £100 to Cornwall then!!

 

If I could only come rarely to London I would be a lot more fussy which dancers and/or productions/company's I wanted to see I think on the other hand if you only get to see ballet rarely I should imagine it would be a delight to see anybody and any ballet!!

[Jan McNulty]

Sorry to be O/T but I have tried booking for a day in London on a Saturday - let's not go there unless you know the ruse which someone explained to me about the day return that you can get via the Virgin website.  The company does not make these tickets in the least bit obvious!

 

Last year I needed to go to London for the day.  It turned out to be cheaper(!) to go down the night before!  It ended up being quite reasonable as I was able to cadge a bed for the night from a friend but even a hotel would have been cheaper than the early morning ticket!

[alison]

This is an interesting point about the Company or the Star.  A couple of years ago I asked Wayne Eagling why the casting for ENB performances was announced so late and he said it was his great hope that people would come to see the company as a whole, rather than particular dancers, which showed his faith in the company at all levels.  This is a fine sentiment and seems to work well for a lot of first-time and occasional balletgoers but people who watch companies on a regular basis inevitably develop preferences for certain dancers in certain roles and I am glad to see that Tamara Rojo announces casting slightly sooner than Wayne did so that it is easier to plan which performances to attend.

 

Well, not only that, but the keener ones among us may be trying to get a range of different casts (or alternatively to go and see every performance by a specific cast, for that matter!), or catch people they haven't previously seen in a given role, and so on.

[nottsballetlover]

Gosh - very interesting topic, bringing up lots of issues. I live in Nottingham and have to plan very carefully the ballets I book in London plus travel and hotel costs, against budget!!  I've already instigated an almost military planning system for my 'autumn ballet in London' - this has involved getting RB performances to tie in with matinees at Sadlers, to tie in with advance cheap hotel bookings......then I still have to jump on the cheapest advance train fares (using an 'advance fare alert' by email system) the minute they become available 10 to 12 weeks ahead of the travel date for my particular rail company.....So for me it is very much the company, not the 'star'.

 

In any case, I regard all ballet dancers as 'stars' in their own right (in my eyes!). Every performance is unique and every dancer is special in their own way. I try to see different dancers and ballets - the more variety the better. I cannot invest too much emotionally in seeing particular dancers as, like others, I have to factor in travel and sometimes accommodation. I book for ballets which fit in with my travel possibilities and budget. Sometimes, I have booked a a particular cast and it has changed at the last minute - but I have yet to be disappointed in any replacement cast at RB. And I think the ROH do themselves no favours by advertising casts so far in advance - most ballet companies do not. I mean heavens, I've just had my Friends magazine and the ballet casts are already in place up to February 2014. How can they possibly know that far ahead????

 

My one exception recently to the 'star' thing (to my somewhat embarrassment) was what I will call my 'Sergei' thing last week . I did not get to see him dance before he left the RB and I was probably sucked in by the media hype as much as many others. That was the one and only time I booked for 'the star' not the company. Yes, he was dreamy, memorable and amazing, so yes, I'm pleased I booked to see him and so happy I did see him dance so beautifully. And to be fair, the rest of the company were good too. I'm not doing that again though - the tension and anxiety I experienced ahead of curtain up was too much, I would have been emotionally (and financially) wrecked if he hadn't turned up......

[LinMM]

I was like that for my recent "star" thing.....Osipova/Vasiliev in Don Q . I would have been just SO disappointed if there had been a late announcement at the curtain that one of them could not appear!!

 

As it happened they both did and the whole thing was quite wonderful even if a tad over the top at times and if I had come a long way to see it would definitely have felt gratified!

[Coated]

Osipova/Vasilliev seem to have that effect on quite a few people judging by the panicked murmur that set in when a cast change was announced at the start of one of their London performances this year, followed by a collective sigh of relief and nervous laughter when the cast change was for a more minor role.

 

I ended up having an accidental 'Sergei' thing. I booked the Coppelia because I'd never seen the ballet and as part of my grand plan to see as many Russian companies as possible (blame the Bolshoi - a season years ago with ickle Osipova & Vasilliev and Tsiskaridze in La Bayadere). Then I kept hearing about Polunin, and decided to book for one of his performances as well to see what all the excitement was about. Then I had to book another one to make sure that he really was as good as I thought he was. He was. Thankfully this coincided with a nice little overtime payment, so I can still pay the rent this month....

[Mummykool]

I grew up being taken to whoever was performing in Bournemouth. We saw Fille Mal Gardee the first time it travelled to the provinces and my Mother liked it so much we saw it twice. I was about 8 or 9 at the time but even then I could see there was a world of difference when we saw Doreen Wells and Christopher Gable take the lead roles.

 

Later on I lived in New York  in the glory days of Baryshnikov, Makarova, Kirkland and Bujones mentioned by Meunier  .....(did we ever meet I wonder?)With such dancers performing regularly, it was an absolute no-brainer to wait until the casting was published. At $9 a seat up in the Family Circle we could afford to go two or three times a week but we were still very picky as to who we saw dance! We were even known to go only to see Bujones dance the Corsaire pas de deux..at $1 a minute it was well worth it!

 

Now I live in Bristol and it is a slog to get to Covent Garden (or the Coliseum). It is nice to compare different dancers' interpretations, but this is somewhat of a luxury for us.  Higher ticket prices and the knowledge we won't be home until 1.30 am have honed our choices down to the bone, even to the point of exchanging tickets should a our chosen dancer be injured. (We were at the Kobborg/ Cojacaru performance of Mayerling in June because I'd exchanged the tickets when Johan dropped out of their earlier performances, so that was a real bit of luck! )

 

If we don't know the company well I try to look up the dancers on You Tube to see what they are like. Didn't bother with the Stanislavsky having seen bits of their version of Coppelia posted there. Also Polunin never seemed to be bothered in most of the performances we saw at Covent Garden, so we decided to return the compliment!  

I'm finding it very frustrating that ENB are so slow to release casting information. I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more of them with both Tamara and Alina dancing. Do Friends get more information?

 

Obviously we have favourite ballets but we have discovered so many new and interesting things by booking to see a particular dancer (especially in New York......Push Comes to Shove, Great Galloping Gottschalk, La Sonambula etc. etc). So yes I pick by dancer every time. Osipova/Vailiev may just bankrupt me!

[alison]

Oh, you saw La Sonambula?  You lucky thing!

 

Living in Bristol must be quite difficult, ballet-wise, these days: ENB don't appear there very regularly any more, do they?

 

And I don't think ENB Friends get any particular priority over casting - I think it comes out so relatively late that it just gets published on the website.  On the other hand, if they happen to be visiting the company they might get a sneak preview of who's cast in a production from the noticeboard, at least.

[Mummykool]

Believe it not Alison ENB are bringing Corsaire to Bristol in November

We will probably still end up in London next January to see either Tamara or Alina though......

[capybara]

And I don't think ENB Friends get any particular priority over casting - I think it comes out so relatively late that it just gets published on the website.  On the other hand, if they happen to be visiting the company they might get a sneak preview of who's cast in a production from the noticeboard, at least.

Sometimes an e-mail about casting issues to ENB Friends/Circle members at the same time as the announcement is put up on the website. If one attends rehearsals/masterclasses it is possible to discern who is down for particular roles but not, of course, when their performances will be. And, with the exception of the Coli,  by the time casting is published, the kind of seats one would want to buy are often no longer available.

[alison]

If one attends rehearsals/masterclasses it is possible to discern who is down for particular roles but not, of course, when their performances will be.

 

And then, of course, you might go "Oh, so-and-so looked really good in rehearsal.  I'll wait for the casting to come out because I want to see him/her."

[capybara]

And then, of course, you might go "Oh, so-and-so looked really good in rehearsal.  I'll wait for the casting to come out because I want to see him/her."

 

Exactly so, Alison. 

 

I remember years ago, having booked for others in the RB's Anastasia, seeing Gillian Revie rehearse the role at an Insight Evening and realising that she had to be seen in performance. I was not disappointed.