JaneHartley

The ballet world in general is missing a trick in properly marketing their talent imo

Surprised this hasn't got more of a reaction, he seemed to be doing very well there and regularly partnering Smirnova. The international life, sounds glamorous but it must be hard to be a ballet dancer without the easy access to physio, trainers, coaches etc. Perhaps he already has his next move lined up after a year away.

Hopefully no one, they are bloated enough at the top rank as it is. To me it sounds like basically she is going part time to focus on family. Returning for particular roles, she will keep doing. She hasn't done much guesting recently as far as I am aware.

Marianela for Queen of Hearts maybe? They seem to be transitioning away from the older Alice's and they need to find something for her to dance in this season!

I think this is a great subject for a ballet but I have fundamentally never seen a ballet (sorry I don't include contemporary dance masquerading as ballet here) between two or more men really work, in the way it works between a man and a woman. The contrasts to me of what both bring are what make it work. This would be my major hesitation of a Wilde ballet, particularly if the intention was to focus on his male loves. I would hope that the wife is included as a major element to contrast between any male on male dancing. To be honest, I think LWFC was an awful choice for a ballet, far to complex and difficult to pare down to its key themes to get a cross in a dance medium. As a result it was a mess imo. This at least does have more promise.

I see Lauren Cuthbertson is going to be Queen of Hearts. Is there any more Alice casting beyond what is on the RBO website?

Now I am disappointed I didn't get a blue odd one out!

I have actually cancelled my membership for this very reason (the fact they didn't do casting before the booking opening last season didn't help). I would think at the very least, they could email all Friends with the discount codes to make sure they got them (even if they are being advertised on Instagram). However, I suspect they want to limit the cancellation and rebooking of your own seats at a discount (which I have done). I did notice that last season they did not email me (I had booked tickets to a performance that was then discounted) but they did email my partner (he had obviously not booked the tickets) which made me think that they deliberately avoided sending it to those who had tickets.

Was this the only programme to get the purple paintbrush? I don't think I went to this performance anywhere near any of the actual jubilee celebrations!

Random Question - Does anyone know why the Royal Opera House produced the programme in purple not the usual red for Scenes de Ballet/Month in the Country/Rhapsody in the 2021/22 season. This one random purple programme in a sea of red bugs me every time and I never knew why they did it...

Are there any such thing as 'friends discounts'. There are discounts they put up on social media and ones they send round via email (but these are never to just or all friends).

Can you share these...

To be honest, I think they clearly intended to seek to develop Liam Scarlett as the more 'classical' resident choreographer since his style was greatly influenced by MacMillan/Cranko and others which would have contrasted with the McGregor contemporary dance (much of it can't even be called ballet). If we leave aside the fact that the RB has some serious questions to answer on how they handled Liam which has never been addressed (I can't think of many national institutions today that could vaguely accuse someone of something that gets them blackballed by their profession across the globe leading to their suicide and then be allowed to sweep it under the carpet), there was a clear intention to take a talented young choreographer and actively develop them through commissions shorter and then longer to mould a choreographer in keeping with the english ballet tradition. They appear to have given up on this approach when they lost Liam. They potentially they might argue that there isn't an easy replacement, but if they RB isn't commissioning and scheduling classical/neo-classical ballet as their main repertoire how will we develop the talented choreographers. I think it is shocking really the amount of talent that the RB has had that it hasn't created on properly, including Vadim. Alina, imo the greatest ballerina of her generation is another. Similarly Nunez has been overlooked for full lengths.

I agree they can go on for much longer than they did before but they will be declining in physical ability, that is just the nature of time. Yes their performances may be enhanced by experience in other areas but we need to enjoy the physical peak of Vadim which won't last that much longer (in relative terms) whilst we still can as he is an extraordinary dancer and a large part of that is his physical skills.

In reality how many male dancers are at their prime in their late 30s? How many in their early forties? Particularly given his strength is classical ballet. In reality we have probably only 4ish peak years and maybe a few more beyond that at the highest level. This is just a fact of human biology. Vadim has been very lucky injury wise too so far, but as he ages, the risk will go up there too. I doubt he would move, he is too settled here, it gives him a good platform to guest elsewhere when he wants. However, this season has been a complete waste of the RBs classical dancers. More pressingly, they have essentially discarded half a season of Nunez when she is 42 and has probably even fewer seasons left to her