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As the plans for the next season at Bolshoi have been unveiled, my suggestion to those of us who are particularly interested in Marius Petipa and ballet "reconstruction:" book your trip to Moscow early and acquire the tickets at your earliest convenience for the 3-nights run of Great Petipa at Bolshoi (6-8 July 2018). Yuri Burlaka, Sergei Vikharev, Alexei Ratmansky unite their forces. The source of information: http://www.bolshoi.ru/upload/medialibrary/a65/a655d67a780f3e199a03324fbbbdf031.pdf pages 28-29 (page 16 in the above PDF file)

Foteini Christofilopoulou was at the rehearsal for the Royal Ballet's 'The Sleeping Beauty', which opens at ROH on the 21st Dec. The photo call was of Sarah Lamb and Vadim Muntagirov in the Act 3 grand pdd. The performances opened now (from 21st Dec) Vadim Muntagirov, Sarah Lamb © Foteini Christofilopoulou. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr Vadim Muntagirov, Sarah Lamb © Foteini Christofilopoulou. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr See more... Set from DanceTabs: RB - The Sleeping Beauty (Act 3 gpdd) Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr By kind permission of the Royal Opera House

Just when I wasn’t going to post about all the performances I am seeing abroad … the list of dance links on Friday included a review of the mixed programme in Nice that finished yesterday (thank you, Ian Macmillan). The review on DanceTabs is very detailed, and I am thus keeping it to some comments about the performance that I saw last night. Le grand pas classique from Raymonda. Compared to the version in the ROH repertoire, Vu-An’s version is a little shorter, adjusted in the number of variations to the much smaller company, and equally adapted to the smaller stage in Nice. This is a wedding of pride, prestige and honour - love didn’t seem to feature, not for the bride and groom (Gaëla Pujol and Théodore Nelson, as on the opening night) nor for any of the wedding guests. Dance wise not really my style as too classical and inviting applause after every solo. I preferred most a male quartet with double tours en l’air followed by entrechats followed by double tours en l’air and entrechats and … Gnawa. This was hypnotising in music and movement. Two group sections with a long sensual PDD in between. The music included drums and the sounds of birds, and invited moving to the rhythm of the music in one’s seat. Veronica Colombo and Mikhail Soloviev in the lead roles were superb. The review on DanceTabs mentions that Mikhail Soloviev is new to the company in Nice. This may be relatively new as he was already there when I first saw the company in April, and a search for his name on the web also shows him with the company in 2013. L’Arlésienne. This is new to the company in Nice. Wow. Fabulous. Magnificient. Splendid. I was watching in utter disbelief at how marvellous the performance by the lead couple - Zaloa Fabbrini and Alessio Passaquindici - was; both in acting and dancing. They made the story to truly believable. I sat there open mouthed and with baited breath, and I felt so incredibly sorry for the two of them. Eric Vu-An has published extracts from a general rehearsal on his public facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/Eric-Vu-An-383731904998106/?fref=nf Last night confirmed that this is one of my favourite companies in France. I really like how Vu-An expands the repertoire and develops dancers from within the company, and how much he is able to achieve with a company of just 26 dancers. The new soloists were all promoted from within the company at the end of last season, and the new dancers all joined at corps de ballet level. I do hope that the success that he is able to generate will allow him to grow the company in size at some stage in the future and in doing so, add a few more performances across the year. I can’t wait to be back in April for the next mixed programme, which will include Jiri Kylian’s Sinfonietta and Liam Scarlett’s Vespertine.

Travel from London with BalletcoForum member and former ballet dancer Kevin Flanagan and see the majestic Mariinsky Ballet perform in St Petersburg this October. The trip, leaving from London's Heathrow Airport, includes a backstage tour of the famous Mariinsky theatre where Petipa choreographed and Tchaikovsky composed as well as a peformance by the world-famous company. It offers a unique chance to see the same ballet company that gave us Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, as well as the dancers Nureyev and Baryshnikov, Pavlova and Nijinsky. The 5-day accompanied visit to Russia’s cultural capital includes a ballet performance in Catherine the Great’s private theatre in the historic Hermitage Museum. Kevin, who appeared in the world premiere of Nureyev's Romeo & Juliet with London Festival Ballet at the London Coliseum in 1977, and the Kirov as a gentleman actor, when they appeared in Dublin, will lead his second tour to the Mariinsky in St Peterburg. For more details, pics and videos of Kevin's previous visit to the Mariinsky go to: https://www.traveldepartment.ie/holiday-types/ballet-holidays/

I've just been reading Alastair Macaulay's review of ABT's "new" Sleeping Beauty as revised/restored by Ratmansky: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/arts/dance/review-ratmanskys-the-sleeping-beauty-has-premiere-in-california.html?ref=dance&_r=1 He sounds pretty taken with it. Would love to read feedback from anyone who's been to see it.

Swan Lake run opened tonight, with Oxana Skorik as Odette/Odile, and Timur Askerov as Prince Siegfried. We had a few snippets with them (so a couple of photo opportunities, before the main rehearsal run with Yulia Stepanova and Xander Parish in the leads (they perform in the Saturday matinee) Here are a couple of sample photos from DanceTabs: Oxana Skorik & Timur Akerov (as Odette & Prince Siegfried) © Dave Morgan. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr Yulia Stepanova and Xander Parish (as Odette & Prince Siegfried) © Dave Morgan. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr Yulia Stepanova and Xander Parish (as Odette & Prince Siegfried) © Dave Morgan. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr See more... Set from DanceTabs - Mariinsky Ballet: Swan Lake Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr

Since nobody seems to have started one yet, here's a thread for discussing the new run of RB performances of Sleeping Beauty, which starts today.

Alexandrova injured on stage. And several times the corps crashed into each other as well. Really, really under rehearsed

I'd meant to post something about this a month or two back, but recent reports in Today's Links (http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/1602-dance-links-wb-sunday-august-5-2012/, entries 6 and 7 at the time of writing) have made the subject topical again. The Paris Opera Ballet's March live relay of Rudolf Nureyev's production of La Bayadère has been shown in UK cinemas over the last couple of months, and also, I now see, in the USA. (It couldn't be shown live, because the date picked clashed with the Royal Ballet's live broadcast of Romeo and Juliet). It featured Aurélie Dupont as Nikiya, the newly-promoted étoile Josua Hoffalt as Solor and Ludmila Pagliero as Gamzatti. All the showings I could find seemed to be around lunchtime on a weekday, which will doubtless have reduced the possible audience, but did anyone else get to see it? I loved seeing the opulence of this production again: it really is stunning. Among the secondary casting, I have to admit to being very taken with Charline Giezendanner in the Manu, and later on as whichever Shade she danced: she has a very vivacious stage personality, which came over well in the former. It was interesting seeing Pagliero being promoted to étoile on stage - she'd taken on the role at the very last minute due to multiple injuries, not having danced it since the previous production run, I believe - but I was rather sorry that it took the focus so much off Dupont at the curtain calls: Gamzatti is very much the secondary role in this production, unlike in the Makarova production for the Royal Ballet, where the ballerinas are rather more evenly cast. I still wish Nureyev had been able to restore the final act, though - knowing that it might have been possible always leaves me with the feeling that this production is somehow incomplete.