Hi!!

I'm thinking of going to London to see Mayerling in April.
I'm from Italy so I must buy the tickets thought the net; can you tell me when is better to buy the tickets and what are the best seats (amphitheatre or orchestra stalls?) ?


Thanks
(and sorry for mistakes )

Hi ScarlettDiva and welcome to BalletTalk

I'm from Barcelona (Spain) and I also was thinking about going to see Mayerling as it is one of the favourites ballets of my husband and also to see Tamara Rojo dancing as she is the cast for some peformances.

I've been twice in the Covent Garden (Corella and Tamara) and I have always seated at orchestra stalls row 10 (I think) and it was very good. I've purchased by phone and picked tickets up at the C.G. the day of the performance with no problem at all.

Good luck and tell us about so I'll do I if I go!

Hello ScarlettDiva and welcome to Ballet Talk!

The Orchestra stalls seats are almost always appreciably better than the amphitheater seats, but also a good deal more expensive. I've had good luck with the phone staff at Covent Garden - they're said to be much more helpful nowadays and I found that true, with the sales agent really helping me get the best possible seat available within my budget.

If you are purchasing online rather than on the phone, don't get seats very far to the sides - the sightlines at Covent Garden past around 10 seats from the "bend" in the horseshoe starts to cut off quite a bit of the stage - for instance, B34 in the stalls circle loses about 10% of the extreme left. All the seats in the orchestra should have a clear view.

I've found with Covent Garden, buy your seats as early as you can - as soon as you definitely know your dates will not change. Things can sell out there.

Please let us know what you see and how you like it - and tell us about the ballet you are seeing in Italy!

P.S. 3000 posts with this one. Whee! I'm an Emerald!

I placed a phone order about five years ago , and while the agent was very friendly, she understated the amount of the stage that was obscured from the viewpoint of my side seat. Worse, she neglected to mention that my seat was positioned to face the opposite side of the auditorium, meaning that I had to sit with extremely exaggerated epaulement -- a great strain on my upper back and neck.

ScarlettDiva, I hope you'll visit our Welcome Page and introduce yourself.
Mazel tov! I wouldn't have thought so, but green suits you nicely, Leigh!

It's also possible to buy tickets over the Internet from the Royal Ballet site. The tickets were held at the box office, and I picked them up about 30 minutes before the performance.

Thank you soo much for the help !!

It's the same to book the tickets from other sites (ex. ticketswitch.com or londononline) ??

The Royal Opera House's booking site has an 'interactive seating chart' in which certain seats can be clicked on, and then you see the view of the stage from that seat... It can be slightly deceiving, as the curtains are closed in the view, so it's hard to tell how much of upstage and of the extreme stage left/right you'll be missing. Still, it's helpful.

A word regarding the stalls, although I've sat their less than a handful of times.... If you're short, well, try to get an aisle seat....

I just found my tickets from a visit to London last fall.

I saw Un ballo in maschera from the Amphitheatre, and I was miserable until the women to my left decided to leave after first intermission, and the people to their left and I expanded into the space. There are no armrests, and the seats were made for a thinner crowd than I.

I saw Sylvia the next night from the Grand Tier, and it was worth eating sandwiches for lunch all week instead of eating in restaurants to make up for the 27-pound difference in price.

Hi ScarlettDiva

Ami1436 is right...if you are short, the stalls can be a problem. So, I discovered the stalls circle....you will be sightly elevated and the grade is better too [although I have always been lucky and gotten either row A or row B during my few trips to the ROH stalls circle]. Just look on the seating chart and try to be certain that you are fairly central so that you can get a full stage view.

It is sort of a coincidence that you are going for Mayerling. I traveled to London from the States in 2004 to see Irek Mukhammedov in that ballet. I bought my tickets many months earlier so I had seats in a central part of the stalls circle and it was well worth it. It was one of those trips where everything went right...British Airways ran out of cheap seats and bumped my daughter and I up to a better class! We actually saw a few other ballets but it was both of Mukhammedov's performances in Mayerling that week that initially brought us to London.

Enjoy your trip to London and the performance.

Ciao.
Renata