James

You are right, Alison. It was Moscow City Ballet.

So would I!

Of course we shouldn’t sanitise or bowdlerise the past, but we shouldn’t misrepresent it either, which is precisely what La Bayadere is doing in its current form. i would recommend this article to anyone who wonders what is perceived as unacceptable in that ballet. https://pointemagazine.com/la-bayadere-orientalist-stereotypes/

The Semperoper’s production was by Aaron Watkins, wasn’t it?

As a matter of interest, Mayara Magri and Lukas BB danced the Nutcracker pdd at Gary Avis’s Gala in Ipswich back in September 2016. Here’s the comment I posted at the time:- “The Nutcracker – Act II Grand pas de deux Dancers: Mayara Magri, Lukas Bjorneboe Braendsrod. (Danced quite regally, which is probably how it should be done. The Sugar Plum solo was very good – with recognisable gargouillades – though the presto ending was cut. Lukas shows a lot of promise, tall and elegant with good elevation. The final leap into the fish dive was nicely timed.)”

I think that when the Messel production was revived in 2006 Peter Farmer created new costumes for some of the characters, including the wolf and, notably the Lilac Fairy. After a few years the Farmer costumes were replaced with ones that more closely replicated the original Messel designs, including that of the wolf.

When I looked at my old programmes I was surprised to see that in the revival of the “Messel” production in 2006, the first prince (the one who does most of the partnering) was called the French Prince - but by 2011 he had become the English Prince. The French Prince was then relegated to second place, and the second prince in 2006, named as the Spanish Prince, has disappeared. Curiously, according to C W Beaumont’s very detailed account of the 1946 production, the nationalities of the four princes are said to be English, Italian, Indian and Polish. Incidentally, Beaumont’s book, which I acquired recently, contains 40 full page photographs of the 1946 production and its cast by Edward Mandinian, intended to provide “a permanent record and souvenir of the elaborately staged revival of The Sleeping Beauty”. I wish I could share some of these photographic gems.

I think the absence of a stepmother from Ashton’s Cinderella may be partly explained by the fact that, despite her inclusion in the original Russian scenario, 1948 British audiences would not have expected to see one. Most theatregoers’ experience of Cinderella on stage would have come from either, at one end of the theatrical scale, the Rossini opera La Cenerentola or, at the other, the traditional British pantomime version of the story, neither of which features a wicked stepmother. This was two years before Walt Disney released his animated version in which the cruel stepmother was a prominent character. The progenitor of the traditional British pantomime version (which Ashton claimed never to have seen) was the 1860 “fairy burlesque extravaganza, Cinderella or The Lover, The Lackey and The Little Glass Slipper” by H. J. Byron, which borrowed heavily from the Rossini opera, including the names of the step-sisters and the business of the Prince and his valet Dandini swapping roles. Byron, incidentally, also introduced the role of Cinderella’s father’s page, Buttons.

In no way do I endorse the terminology, but in a 2010 programme article on Fille, David Vaughan, author of Frederick Ashton and his Ballets, refers to Alain as “half-witted”.

I think you may be confusing this with Swan Lake. The production which preceded Dowell’s “back to the original” Petipa/Ivanov version, had much Ashton in it: Act IV, the Act I waltz, and, in Act III, the pas de quatre and Neapolitan Dance. The last of these was eventually re-instated by Dowell. IIRC the short-lived Makarova Sleeping Beauty (which premiered in 2003) was commissioned in 2002 by the late Ross Stretton during his brief tenure as Director.

My old friend John Raven, who died a year ago, was full of ballet anecdotes. He told me once of his meeting Beryl Grey. John, a dancer, teacher and actor, and a tall and very strong man, taught double work and pas de deux at the Bush-Davies school for 25 years from 1964. When Beryl Grey, who was always short of tall partners, saw him at work she exclaimed, “Where were you when I was dancing?”. After a moment she added, “Never mind, we shall dance in heaven.” I do hope they are.

On BBC4 at 20.10 on Christmas Eve, The Classical Collection looks back on seven decades of seasonal classical music on the Beeb, and includes Nureyev dancing in The Nutcracker.

I always enjoy his appearance in The Nutcracker- along with those of the housekeeper and the maiden aunts, all of whom are played by more mature performers. For many years one of the aunts was portrayed by Diane Holland, famously the faded ballroom champion Yvonne in TV’s Hi Di Hi. I think it’s a shame the Royal Ballet don’t cast older dancers in the roles of the Grandfather and Grandmother. Young dancers look so unconvincing however good the make-up - this was particularly noticeable in the cinema screening.

The lawyer in me has always justified it thus: Aurora is incapacitated, likewise her next of kin, her parents. The Lilac Fairy, as her godmother, is effectively in loco parentis, and the preceding mime (at any rate in the Royal Ballet’s production) shows that she gives her tacit consent to the kiss.

Sebastian Stills from the International Ballet production are here:- https://www.rohcollections.org.uk/record.aspx?searchtype=collection&ref=110002584&page=17&img=110002584_8302&collection=Frank Sharman Photographic Collection&row=2&tit= James