The Sitter In

The irony is that, with a lot of time kicking their heels between scheduled RB performances, the good principals may well be doing their best work elsewhere… e.g. Sambé in La Fille in Paris, Ball working with Kim Brandstrup and Nuñez and Muntagirov guesting everywhere… Seems like London may well be getting a bum deal at exorbitant prices…

If you are bored by dancing the classics, why not become a contemporary dancer…?

The unbelievable dullness of the new RB season is indeed a ‘criminal’ waste of a company brimming with classical dancers who have spent most of their young lives training for one goal, and what do they get in 2024/25? McGregor, Wheeldon, Toonga, Pite, Tanowitz and Abraham but not a single classical ballet. Most are stuck as they don’t have the profile to guest, so they must sit it out or leave. Muntagirov is a supreme classical dancer who should not only be used but cherished. What on earth is KOH doing?

Interesting replies and opinions, especially those that are on topic…! It is the absolute waste of talent and opportunity that bugs me most. O’Hare seems to schedule ballets with little thought re. casting…why have Mayerling if there are no obvious Rudolfs? If only O’H could think out of his McGregor/Wheeldon/Toonga box, e.g. why not revive Van Manen’s Four Schumann Pieces for Muntagirov? - it was made for the RB as a vehicle for Dowell, so fitting for Vadim, and reviving it would also acknowledge a great choreographer now well into his nineties…

With Muntagirov entering what might just be his ‘golden period’ of dancing when technique, strength, experience and artistry come together, am I alone in despairing that the Royal Ballet will be giving him next to nothing to do this coming season? Not cast in Alice, highly unlikely to appear in the contemporary bill (perhaps the least appealing offering of recent years) or Maddadam, he has a few Cinderellas in December and then is not cast in Onegin and won’t be in Light of Passage. He will have to wait for R&J and, one assumes, the Balanchine bill in March… Given he could have the pick of companies around the world, who would blame him if he started to contemplate a move? Either that or he just ramps up the guesting abroad, does a longer residency or takes a sabbatical. Amsterdam is not far and has hoovered up some impressive artists in recent years - Allen, Smirnova and Tissi - and currently has a far more interesting rep. But what a waste of a such a dancer who, let’s be honest, comes around maybe once a generation. The Royal may well only realise what they had once they have lost it and a dancer’s professional life is short…

A dancer I enjoyed watching greatly. I remember him dancing Ashton’s Voices of Spring pdd with Viviana Durante so well… I wish him every success in his new role, especially that the RB rep is now very far from what he knew as a performer…

“It is not Ukrainian land.” Not sure you quite understand the city’s ‘special status’ (under Ukrainian law) which allowed Russia’s Black Sea fleet to be based there alongside its own craft FionaM or that it was most definitely Ukrainian until Russia annexed Crimea illegally in 2014. It is like saying that Newcastle would not be part of the UK if Norway decided to grab and keep it.

Sir Wayne? Bet the RB will claim it puts him on a par with Sir Fred and Sir Kenneth… heaven help us all! I can think of many in the dance world who deserve ‘recognition’ well ahead of McGregor…

We should remember that last time, in their infinite wisdom, the RB scheduled Cinderella for…March. At Christmas, it has a far better chance of selling out, even at greedy prices.

Well, if you put together a dull-as-ditch-water season with interminable runs of the same works AND hike the prices, the result will be acres of empty seats. Not rocket science to anyone except to the good old RB and ROH in general who, of course, know best.

Agreed. Alice is a children’s ballet in essence and that is largely reflected in the casting… Nice for corps de ballet to get lead roles but VFM for patrons paying £190? And what will all the ‘big’ names be doing until November/December?Muntagirov is unlikely to appear in the dreadful contemporary evening and he is not a ‘McGregor dancer’, so nothing before Cinderella?

re. casting, it depends on the contract. Lady M does not cast the ballets. Period. I cannot imagine anyone else other than Reid Anderson casting Cranko works. As for Ashton? Who knows?

“He was Diaghilev's last great male dancer” Anton Dolin?

Well at least we are now going to get a full-length new ballet about survivors of a ‘bio-engineered apocalypse’ to cheer us all up…

Given they ARE The Royal Ballet, shouldn’t every season be an Ashton season? Imagine NYCB without much Balanchine…