The Royal Opera House

Having endured yet another day of absolute hell on sticks trying to book ballet tickets via the Royal Opera House website, I am left reeling by their inability to fix long-standing problems.

The problems with system overload when the Friends try to book online, all at the same time, have been around for as long as I have been a member. Even when it was first introduced, as a way of alleviating the burden on the box office staff who processed postal ballot papers, and to give us members some control over the process and cut out the dreaded wait for the post, there have been problems.

Today's issues contributed to the worst ever booking experience, and an email to the Friends office elicited only an apology. That's better than nothing but with no mention of a solution in the pipeline, you wonder whether things will ever get better, and boy have we Friends been patient. Yes, we have been vocal in our admonition of the process, because the Company are so keen to promote themselves as a world class organisation, and this debacle every booking period shows that they are plainly not.

The unannounced introduction of the "waiting room" last year had angered many. As the website cannot cope with, I think it is more than 200, people at any one time, one is forced into an interminable wait. The number ticks round but I have never found it to be a true representation of my place in the queue and as often as not I will be nearly at the front, only to be thrown back to 1039 or something.

Another irritation is that fact that even though booking opens at 8am, the box office staff have to load each date into the system so that in fact, even if you are lucky enough to skip the waiting room and be one of the lucky few first in, you will still have to refresh the pages and wait around 10 minutes depending on how far down the list your favoured production is. I think they need to find a way so that everything is available at 8am as they state - so that the pour souls left worrying in the waiting room can get in faster.

One of the worst facets of all of this is the lack of transparency from the ROH. We are never told the extent of the problems, and never given any indication that they know what needs to be done to fix it. Even testing the system doesn't provide them with fool-proof workings.

In my own experience at 8am this morning, I was one of the lucky few straight in, but getting from one page to another I was timed out and had to start again. I don't understand how I missed the waiting room every time but I did. Even so, when I found the right page, there were almost no tickets left in the area that I wanted - and that was the top priced areas which are usually more freely available. Eventually I found a few I was happy-ish to pay for, but going through the checkout was a disaster. It took forever, but the payment was authorised by my bank. The ROH never got any notification of it and refused to accept it had been authorised. I called the Friends office and was told that they had experienced problems with MasterCard's the day before, so why on earth had they not emailed all the members they could to warn them ? The evening before booking I received an email reminding me of the date and time for booking, so it surely must have been possible. As it is, I am left with tickets reserved somewhere because they were in my basket, but because of the inability of the Company to retrieve authorised transactions, we have to wait for it to fall off my account and then they take the money again. I know there are plenty of people who end up paying three, four or even five times for the same tickets, and I suppose this gets sorted out later, but I simply refused to be party to this way of working when my credit card company assure me that the transaction is good.

I dare say the box office staff are swamped on days like this, and to their credit they are always helpful even when under the most intense pressure.

But is is just not on for a supposedly world class organisation to put it's members and staff through such stressful times during every single booking period and consistently fail to fix the problems which occur every time. I wouldn't mind betting that their solution this time is to limit even further the number of people who can access the site, when really an injection of capital and resource is needed to increase capacity. Maybe the money just isn't there - but then transparency is called for and we should be told that they are just unable to improve sufficiently. Sure, more members will cancel their direct debits but that's happening anyway because in all honesty no-one has the time or wants to be stressed out at 8am every time booking comes around.

I'm also very concerned about the lack of tickets available when I book. I used to find that my membership level was sufficient to be able to buy the top priced seats which I favour, but no longer. As each new booking period comes along I find that it's harder and harder to find available seats, and at the top price why shouldn't you be picky about exactly where they are ? I would like to know where all these seats have gone. I know some members say that they find a better allocation when public booking comes around. Again, transparency is called for when it comes to the allocation of the tickets for each membership level but I have never found the ROH agreeable to this. I dare say if a VIP needs a seat on any given night, they are not turned away, which means that there must always be spare seats held back. But this is just my assumption because the ROH never say how it works.

All in all, not impressed.

The Royal Ballet Season 08/09

I don't see any clear strategy in what they are doing across the board. First we have a grand fanfare announcing that ballet will be shown in cinema's to reach more people. Then we are told by Tony Hall that he wants people to come in and be captivated by the House and what it does. Well no-one is going to get that experience in the cinema !

Monica Mason has, in my opinion, no way of looking forwards and so appoints McGregor. It's something that will turn me and others away from the House.

When you look at the opera season for next year, and the excitement generated by it, and then compare with the ballet season - well, there is no comparison.

I’m shocked by its sheer dullness. Where is the X-factor ? I couldn’t find any surprises at all - it draws heavily on recent previous seasons.

Five straight repeats from the 07/08 season - Jewels, La Bayadere, Serenade, The Nutcracker and Dances at a Gathering. The top price for Swan Lake has risen to £110 and for other three act ballet’s is £97. DGV, The Lesson, Theme and Variations, Swan Lake & Seven Deadly Sins have been performed in the 06/07 season.

Last year the Royal Ballet performed 131 times, for the 08/09 season it will rise minutely to 135 (against the 156 by the Royal Opera). But consider the number of repeats and it looks mind-numbingly dull for audiences and dancers alike.

In terms of the casting which has been announced, there are precious few debuts for the dancers. There is only one debut in Swan Lake (Ansanelli). I’m pleased to see McRae get a debut in Manon, in the more interesting role of Lescaut than Des Grieux. There are 6 other debuts in Manon. The Nutcracker brings with it only three debuts over a staggering 19 performances, most notably McRae with Choe for one matinee only which will surely lead to a bun-fight for tickets.

I don’t think this is a season to get anyone excited about going to the ballet and it looks more about raising money with the box office sure-fire winners of Nutcracker and Swan Lake, though it’s a risk putting the prices for the latter over the £100 mark. I thought last season was all about making money; for 08/09 I was expecting the unexpected. Year on year my attendance at the Royal Opera House is falling. If this is a general trend then at some point the box office takings will be hit and even Swan Lake won’t save them. By then the pressures on young choreographers will be so immense they’ll need insurance just to try to get something on the main stage.

The cry for a new full length classical ballet gets louder every year – but do the ROH have ear muffs on ? I raised the subject with a member of staff the other day and was told that there is no shortage of choreographers in the ranks. So where is the blockage ? It can’t be time, since they put on fewer programmes with longer runs under Mason. And the younger dancers choreograph on each other and put on shows in the smaller spaces without compromising their company obligations. Choreographing on the scale of the main stage, one of the largest in the world, takes a different kind of skill than those honed in the Linbury and the Clore – an example of this was Castle Nowhere, which looked utterly lost on the main stage & the costumes didn’t work, the puffy dresses being too long and overly fussy to show off the dancers.

Where is the person who can stage a ballet with new music, a new story, new choreography, staging, lighting – new everything in fact ? Johan Kobborg told me he had one ready to go with costumes and all – but why haven’t we seen it ? He’s hardly been rushed off his feet with performances. He's just been off his feet.

Jewels was the big talking point last season, and didn’t disappoint, but there is nothing on the new bill to fire up the senses or enthuse about. Surely enthusiasm as much as anything is what spreads the word and enthrals people, inspiring them to visit ? Take Chroma for example – not my taste at all but the crowds were buzzing and the work attracted people from many genres – largely through word of mouth as the run started and promptly sold out to fans of the White Stripes and those curious to know what all the fuss was about.

There’s more than just the choreography to consider – of late the costuming for new modern ballets has been unflattering to the dancers – take Chroma for example. At least we had a bit of colour in Wheeldon’s DGV, and a beautiful ballgown and tutu in his Electric Counterpoint, but these are rare bursts of sunshine in an otherwise grey landscape.

So that leaves what in terms of “new ballets” for the 08/09 season ? Well, it’s just L’Invitation Au Voyage (created by former Royal Ballet dancer Michael Corder and last seen in 1985), a new McGregor (which is part of his contract as resident choreographer), Carmen (Mats Elk and last seen in 2002), Isadora (Deborah MacMillan has devised a new one act version of Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet) and a new Marriott. The trouble is, to see L’Invitation Au Voyage you will also have to sit through (or at least pay for) last season’s Serenade and Theme and Variations from the season before. And it’s the same story with the other “new ballets” which are sandwiched with other very recent performances.

Totally uninspiring and it makes me wonder how the dancers can grind them out time after time.

We are overdue some changes at the ROH on the basis of this announcement.

Having sat through the season preview evening for members this week, I neither saw nor heard anything to dissaude me of that opinion. Mason states, when prompted, that she puts on ballets which she would want to see were she paying for the tickets. Evidently she hasn't paid for a ticket in a very long time. Herein lies the issue - swathes of members don't want to see that ballet's that Mason does, especially over and over again each season.

When asked a question Mason quickly steps back in time and recalls the past with great reverance. Well fine for her, but the audience wants more than that and for me, this was encapsulated perfectly by my guest, one of the 20-30 yr olds who Tony Hall is so very keen to attract to the house, when she said afterwards "well, it was interesting but it's not relevant to any part of my life".

Harking back to the past isn't going to cut it for a new audience - they want to see great works being created now, to be part of something relevant to them, not to be told how great Macmillan or Ashton were, however true it might be. It's just not relevant now.

Who is going to be revering the current ballets in 50 yrs from now ? Mason was quite defensive when asked about new choreographers and said that they can only do what they can do and that we should be asking the questions about where the next classical work is coming from as it's difficult for them to hear !

I say lose the emphasis on the choreographer altogether and make the dancers the focus of the work.

Carlos Acosta and Friends, Coliseum, London, March 31st 2008

A whoosh of air, a flying foot joined to a leg doing a jete at full speed and attached to the most gloriously sculpted body in ballet, making the softest, soundless landing on stage. Enter Carlos Acosta stage right. Adorned as he was last night with the "Clanger outfit", a gold lame skirt basically, he appears not to have noticed the affect he's having on the audience. That guileless smile, the joy of his dancing, the effortless with which he spins, leaps and turns, has the audience gasping for more every single time.

This Olivier award winning show, with a few cast changes, unites Carlos with fellow dancers from the Royal Ballet and showcases some rarely seen works. Les Bourgeois is incredibly funny. Carlos is at his best when he's making it look easy and the steps are far from it.

Tamara Rojo and Jose Martin did a superb job of A Buenos Aires - a tango on pointe which could otherwise have lost it's sharpness without the tango shoes.

Sarah Lamb has proved her versatility in every dance style - and her rapport with Carlos is evident.

Caroline Duprot is an engaging performer; I think she looks like a younger version of Tamara Rojo and perhaps, in time, her star will shine as strongly.

The extracts from Le Sylphide and Winter Dreams were programmed to close together for my liking - a more upbeat number could have successfully been slotted in between. These pas de deux do suffer from being shown out of context, but are no less dazzling technically. Full marks to Valeri Histrov for all those Bournonville beats.

The fusion of back-stage limbering up and performance was a unique one; a refreshing glimpse of the daily grind of a dancer's life. It's a little self-consious but a nice touch nevertheless. There were a few technical hitches. I'm not sure whether all the dancers knew how many curtain calls there would be - the curtain seemed to go up at just the wrong moment as they were running off the stage. Ever the professionals they were back in place within seconds. There were some lengthy pauses between works - not all intended and I think this was first night teething troubles which I'm sure will be ironed out quickly.

The evening ends on a high with a latin flavour you'd expect from Carlos, and sends you out into the night with a spring in your step.

The Royal Ballet Season 08/09 announced today

The new Royal Ballet season details have been announced today and I’m shocked by its sheer dullness. It looks as though it took a couple of minutes to throw together.

Five straight repeats from the 07/08 season - Jewels, La Bayadere, Serenade, The Nutcracker and Dances at a Gathering. The top price for Swan Lake has risen to £110 and for other three act ballet’s is £97. DGV, The Lesson, Theme and Variations, Swan Lake & Seven Deadly Sins have been performed in the 06/07 season.

Last year the Royal Ballet performed 131 times, for the 08/09 season it will rise minutely to 135 (against the 156 by the Royal Opera). But consider the number of repeats and it looks mind-numbingly dull for audiences and dancers alike.

In terms of the casting which has been announced, there are precious few debuts for the dancers. There is only one debut in Swan Lake (Ansanelli). I’m pleased to see McRae get a debut in Manon, in the more interesting role of Lescaut than Des Grieux. There are 6 other debuts in Manon. The Nutcracker brings with it only three debuts over a staggering 19 performances, most notably McRae with Choe for one matinee only.

I don’t think this is a season to get anyone excited about going to the ballet and it looks to be much more about raising money with the box office sure-fire winners of Nutcracker and Swan Lake, though it’s a risk putting the prices for the latter over the £100 mark.

So that leaves what in terms of “new ballets” for the 08/09 season ?

Well, it’s just L’Invitation Au Voyage (created by former Royal Ballet dancer Michael Corder and last seen in 1985), a new McGregor (which is part of his contract as resident choreographer), Carmen (Mats Elk and last seen in 2002), Isadora (Deborah MacMillan has devised a new one act version of Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet) and a new Marriott. The trouble is, to see L’Invitation Au Voyage you will also have to sit through (or at least pay for) last season’s Serenade and Theme and Variations from the season before. And it’s the same story with the other “new ballets” which are sandwiched with other very recent performances.

Totally uninspiring and it makes me wonder how the dancers can grind them out time after time.

We are overdue some changes at the ROH on the basis of this announcement.