Shirley

Thank you very much, Shirley. No problem. I know 'Darcey' is often spelt without the 'e' but Ms Bussell spells it with an 'e'. Her mum's unusual choice of spelling by all accounts.

Hi Farrell Fan Can I clear up your serious matter? Darcey does spell her name with an 'e' and always has.

It's great to read about the Royal Ballet in New York - Thanks for all the news! One thing - Darcey Bussell hasn't danced since April last year due to injury and pregnancy so perhaps people were glad to see her back on stage, never mind on stage in New York! I know I would have given anything to have been there to see the shows but work meant I couldn't! I however know a few people who flew over just to see her and were thrilled that she was dancing so well!

Darcey had a second daughter on February 10th and is scheduled to dance at the Met in July.

Simon I don't believe it is rubbish unless the policy has changed as I said before. I'm only going on what I heard. As far as I am aware the RB have not been allowed to tour large scale productions for some time due to constraints put on them by the Arts Council but they did tour with 'Dance Bites'. I don't think you can call the RB a touring company unlike ENB who spend most of their life on tour. I don't know why the RB stopped 'Dance Bites' but from memory I don't think they took it to major cities. As Alexandra said perhaps someone more informed can tell us what the present policy is!

I'm sure I heard that the Royal Ballet are not allowed to tour large scale productions in the UK.

It has been great to read so many reviews of this bill. I, however, don't find Winter Dreams too long at all and find the interaction between all the characters fascinating, even when they are seated at the dinner table. It would be interesting to find out what they are all talking about when they are round the table.

It wasn't a surprise to see Kowroski put in one of her best performances in a long time, she and Zelensky always danced well together. And he looked tickled to be back dancing after such a long injury layoff. Was this his first performance since sustaining an injury during NYCB's 2001 Nutcracker season? I heard that Zelensky had danced a few performances of Giselle (in Greece) just before Christmas so this was not his first performance since his injury. It has, however, been great to read about him back on stage - he is one of my favourute dancers and I'm so pleased he seems to be dancing well. I just hope we will get to see him in the UK soon.

It will be interesting to see if the other complaints are made public after the meeting. The casting for this past summer season has had the most changes I have known but one interesting aspect of cast changes (for me) is that no reason was given for the changes in cast sheets. It was noted that dancers have been replaced but reasons were not given. It was only be through reading ballet sites on the internet that I knew that some dancers were injured. Most disappointing for me to find out that it was a crazy schedule that stopped Darcey Bussell from being able to dance in Don Q. I know we are lucky that casting is given so far in advance and it must be a nightmare for the directors to do that but since we have that information would it really be that hard for the RB to give reasons for dancers being replaced. They used to do that!

It looks pretty good. One of the best virtual tours I think I have seen is the Sydney Opera House one. http://www.soh.nsw.gov.au/h/t_virtual_tour_fs1.html

From what I heard Chris wanted the central pdd completely separate so it was a decision made from the beginning and not really anything to do with rehearsal schedules.

I ,too, would be interested to know what Mr Stretton means by "new levels of fitness". It seems that there are more dancers injured in the company just now than ever before and dancers are talking about the heavy workload that they have and how tired they all are. Not an ideal situation to improve fitnes levels in my opinion!

I ,too, would be interested to know what Mr Stretton means by "new levels of fitness". It seems that there are more dancers injured in the company just now than ever before and dancers are talking about the heavy workload that they have and how tired they all are. Not an ideal situation to improve fitnes levels in my opinion!

I think it depends on when you watch the RB in London just now. This season so far there has only been programme running at a time but later on there are a few ballets being performed over the same period! Both La Bayadere and Giselle are being peformed in March as well as a mixed bill.

Jonathan Cope is about 6 feet 2 ,so yes he is pretty talll (he usually the chosen partner for Sylvie Guillem and Darcey Bussell). As to the stage - I believe it is the biggest stage in the UK but not sure how it compares to others in the world.

I think I'll hold judgement on Mr Stretton for now. He does, however, seem to have become more adept at damage limitations for now in the press. He however has some serious work to do. I'm sure his policy of late casting is not making him many friends at the box office. (The ROH is already offering discounted tickets for some performances of Don Q and I would expect the same to happen for Onegin.) He also seems to be using some dancers for many different roles in the same ballet. You can imagine the workload some of them will have. I just hope he doesn't push so of them so hard they get injured.

The most interesting aspect of this interview was that it was published after the first night. That first night performance was actually very poor - in fact it was so bad I seriously thought of not going to any more of the performances I had booked. Thankfully the other two performances I have seen were so much better which although pleasing, emphasised just how bad the first night was.

Sounds Wonderful Sonja! Much beter than the recent RB masterclass I attended by Ross Stretton where he gave no advice at all to the dancers even though they were looking towards him for correction. We got some wonderful dancing but I wouldn't be able to call it a masterclass.

There is an article on Darcey coming back to ballet and her other interests in the UK Sunday Times . Great news for all her fans that she is due to be back on stage in December.

Just to say my thoughts are with everyone at this horrendous time.

I had heard about the changements but until December of last year I had never seen them peformed. Zenaida Yanowsky was the first person I saw use them and since then Yanowsky, Miyako Yoshida and Darcey Bussell have performed them. In fact Darcey Bussell used the hops traveling backwards in arabesque on the first night of the run of Swan Lakes in October and then used the changements on the last night of the run at the beginning of December.

I have seen some of the current dancers at the RB use changements this season which I hadn't seen recently (ie last 10 years). I never saw Monica dance but she is fascinating to watch when she rehearses dancers in master classes. A wonderful assest to the RB!

I had heard Stuart has rejoined for the tour but I am unsure if he will continue after that!

Thanks for all the reviews folks, especially yours Alexandra on the 4 casts. Stuart Cassidy has recently come back to the RB so I'm not sure when he would have last danced Colas. Also when the RB performed their most recent run of Fille in London I thought Belinda Hatley gave the best alround performance of all the casts I saw.

Sounds like I missed a great show! Mara joined the company in 1992 and got promoted to First Soloist in 2000. Since then she has danced quiet a few more prominant roles. Juliet, Third Song in Song of the Earth, quite a major role in This House will Burn (Ashley Page) Monotones and quite a few others - mainly this season I may add. She has great feet as you said , a wonderful jump and and I find her very dramatic as well!