While Birmingham Royal Ballet's 2008-09 subscription season doesn't open for booking until 26 April, the season brochure has gone out this week, and should be hitting doorsteps any time now.

You can also find full information on the season in a new section of the Company's website, at www.brb.org.uk/2008-09

This features notes on all the ballets being performed, details of how and when you can book subscriptions and individual tickets, and the all important subscription package order form.

There's also a mammoth interview with Director David Bintley in which he talks about the entire year ahead.

Take a look, and please share your thoughts on the year ahead.

Cheers,

Rob.

A friend and I were recently discussing what we would like to see back in the repertoire and I am sure that someone from BRB must have been bugging my car!!

Most of my wish-list is there - contained in mixed
programmes 2, 3 and 4. The Dream really is one of my all
time favourites so that was absolutely the top of my list,
closely followed by Galantries and Enigma. I collect
penguins so I am always happy to see Penguin Cafe and it is
a real bonus for me to have 2 Pigeons back in the rep so
soon.

The other items on my wish list but not included are Powder,
Grosse Fugue, Tombeaux, Flowers of the Forest, Symphony in 3
Movements, Tarantella and Tchaikovsky PDD as well as a very
early return of the Jazz triple we have just been enjoying! I hope the company is reading this and taking note!

I will, of course, still be subscribing as the subscriptions still offer fantastic value but I am disappointed that the reasonably priced option of a Saturday afternoon no longer exists.

None of my wist list ever appears I would like to see the BRB again perform Krishna, Pictures At An Exhibition (loved the dancing chickens) and Gymnopedie, which was created for the 9th Annual IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics in 2003 and (AFAIK) was only ever performed at the opening night gala. I saw a brief snippet on the news and it looked fab.

It was the same for Desmond Kelly's gala. The details for application and the forms were available via the internet and don't yet seem to have been issued in any hard copy form for anyone who does not have access to the internet. I was away from home (and internet access) when the gala details were announced. As it happens I was in a queue at the Hippodrome Box office when a friend rang me with the details. The young lady in the box office very kindly printed me a form from her internet access.

While I think the net is a wonderful tool, I think it is now becoming discriminatory against people who do not have access (and I know at least four BRB chums who do not) and do not have friends who are able to print the application forms for them.

"Emotional impact became a motivation for David when he began to choreograph his own work. 'My ambition for a great deal of my professional career was to do a piece that would leave the audience entirely in tears,' he reveals, as we discuss the next work in the season, The Two Pigeons. He jokes, 'I haven't spent all my life crying, but Pigeons is a piece that can move me to tears even in a studio rehearsal, partly because of the masterful last pas de deux and because of Lanchbery's arrangement of the music."

Two Pigeons usually has me reduced to uncontrollable sobs by the time of the final pdd. David has stated that he wanted to do something similar. Well all I can say is that he succeeded with Cyrano! I do hope that we have Cyrano back in the rep before too long, but with plenty of notice so that I can stock up on hankies and eye drops!

I found that with repeated viewings of Cyrano, because Cyrano and Roxanne's music is used both when he is trying to express his love to her and then at the end when she is dying, I started crying in the happy bits let alone at the end. I know a number of other people who feel the same as I do about this Bintley masterpiece.

My booking form came in the post yesterday so I guess most people should get theirs very soon, if they haven't had it already.

Please rest assured, nobody should be disadvantaged in the race to book subscription tickets by not having internet access. The brochures were posted early last week to all Friends, previous subscribers and regular bookers. The majority of the brochures should have hit doorsteps by now.

This mailing includes a copy of the booking form, so recipients will not in the first instance require the internet at all. In previous years, however, postal issues have meant that some people have not received the brochures, or in some cases people have been away from home when they have arrived. The use of the internet means that we can ensure that for at least some of these people there is a contingency plan.

In fact the on-line materials have not yet been linked to from the rest of the Birmingham Royal Ballet website, meaning that you can only access them by knowing the specific URN for that part of the site. This has only been made available in four places - the subscription brochure itself (which is currently only being distributed by post, not racked for the general public), the recent edition of the magazine of the BRB Friends, one advert in the programme at Friday's Evening of Music and Dance, and here at ballet.co.uk. It will not be made available on the general Birmingham Royal Ballet website until later this week, following an e-bulletin to the Company's e-mail list.

In any case, as you note, applications will not be processed until 26 April. No priority is given no matter how soon before this date the forms are received, meaning that everyone still has time to
get their booking forms in without missing out.

Rob.

What elements of the mixed programmes are you looking forward to, and why should readers of this forum unfamiliar with the works give them a go?

Rob.

Personally, I love triple bills because there is the chance to compare the works of different choreographers. The programme I am particularly interested in seeing is the one with Still Life at the Penguin Cafe, as I’ve always wanted to see this and always managed to miss it. It sounds different and lively. I just have to see a dancing Humbolt's Hog-nosed Skunk Flea! And it is paired with two works by two of the greatest choreographers. There is the pure dance of Balanchine, and the dramatic Enigma Variations. The latter is one of my favourite ballets. Elgar's music is gorgeous, and Ashton's interpretation of each of the musical friends is marvellous. I defy anyone to sit through it and not feel deeply moved by it. On top of that, the costumes for this are wonderful. The whole programme incorporates such a contrast of styles, it sounds like the perfect evening to me.

On a related note, as you've no doubt noticed, last year marked a change away from imagery taken in studio photoshoots, in favour of performance shots taken at previous shows. I've posted a thread about it with some of this year's examples - please take a look and if you've got any thoughts on the change of photographic style, let me know.

You can find the thread here.

Cheers,

Rob.

This information doesn't seem to have reached the Box Office. I just spoke to a Box Office Assistant who told me that the forms are processed in the order they are received!

Hi everybody,

I was dismayed to hear another similar story to this one only recently, and so have passed this issue on to a colleague who is looking into it. I would hope that nobody has been disconvenienced and that everybody who has booked is receiving seats in the area that they have requested, but apologies regardless.

Rob.

I'm happy to bring good news on both fronts regarding The Lowry - Birmingham Royal Ballet are currently scheduled to visit Salford in the spring and the summer of 2009, and all of the Ashton pieces will be included on these tours.

In the spring we're due to bring David bintley's re-approached Sylvia, as well as the Pomp and Circumstances programme featuring Serenade, Enigma Variations and 'Still Life' at the Penguin Café.

The summer tour then sees the Company bring the Sir Fred and Mr B. tribute to Frederick Ashton and George Balanchine (featuring The Two Pigeons and Mozartiana) and Love and Loss, which features Galanteries and The Dance House, both by David Bintley, and The Dream, again by Ashton.

Dates are still being confirmed and therefore tickets are not yet on sale, but I will post information when it becomes available.

Cheers,
Rob.