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Yep, first few performances' Nutcracker casting now up... as yet, with no new Claras, which is interesting.  Wonder if we'll have some new ones in the latter part of the run...

 

Edit: spoke too soon - a few more now added - Isabella Gasparini making a Clara debut.

 

 

Thrilled for Isabella.  We still miss her at NB.

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Again Cuthbertson at cinema relay?

 

Boring

I presume you mean by that "Why are management putting Cuthbertson on in the cinema relay two years running?"? Not that it would be the first time we've had the same principal in a Nutcracker relay.

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Vadim Muntagirov is scheduled for 3 x Fille & 3 x Nutcracker. But nothing in Anastasia or the McGregor mixed bill. Unless I'm missing something.

 

Does anyone know if he's involved with other projects elsewhere next Autumn? 

 

 

Vadim is scheduled to guest in National Ballet of Japan's Romeo and Juliet on November 3rd and 5th. (MacMIllan)

 

http://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/ballet/performance/151224_007963.html

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Really hoping Naghdi/Ball are cast together more in future performances though.

You and me both, Sylph....and many other people. Their chemistry and empathy is crystal clear for everyone to see, so let's hope management sees it too and doesn't let it dissipate from non-use...

 

On the subject of chemistry, which I thought Choe and Campbell had in spades during the last Two Pigeons run, what a pity that they aren't cast together in Fille. I know that he and Marquez are dancing together but if Muntagirov can dance with Morera and Nunez, why can't Campbell have Choe as well as Marquez?

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Vadim Muntagirov is scheduled for 3 x Fille & 3 x Nutcracker. But nothing in Anastasia or the McGregor mixed bill. Unless I'm missing something.

 

Does anyone know if he's involved with other projects elsewhere next Autumn? 

 

 

Vadim is scheduled to guest in National Ballet of Japan's Romeo and Juliet on November 3rd and 5th. (MacMIllan)

 

http://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/ballet/performance/151224_007963.html

 

 

On his Facebook page there is mention of the Ballet Stars in the Kremlin Gala on 15th October which is also featuring Marianela Nunez, Thiago Soares and Steven McRae.

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Considering this autumn casting do you think Takada is going to become principal at the end of this season ?

 

That would be nice! Her performances in Giselle and Two Pigeons were my favourites, of the run of each

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Well let's hope we get a Naghdi/Ball pairing up in Sleeping Beauty...besides their evening performance in Nutcracker (although someone hinted they'd dance at a Matinee too (?) 

 

That would be super wouldn't it!

Don't think they announce the schools matinee casts to stop respective fans beating the door down for tickets they won't get!  :-(

(unless someone knows a teacher or two we could stand in for...)

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I am looking forward to the whole season full stop. I always wanted to see Mayerling - especially with Edward Watson (Hope that he is dancing it this season).

 

I am looking forward to Anastasia, the question is which dancer to see, Osipova, Cuthbertson or Morea?

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I presume you mean by that "Why are management putting Cuthbertson on in the cinema relay two years running?"? Not that it would be the first time we've had the same principal in a Nutcracker relay.

 

It seems very strange to do that, though. Many people can only see the company via these relays, so why give them the same principal again? (Wonderful though she is.) No doubt there are all sorts of issues involved in selecting possible dates for the screenings; but why not then allocate the casting to ensure variety for the cinema audience? (And allow more dancers to have this opportunity.)

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Yes, Naghdi and Ball are doing the schools matinee in November. A repeat of the RnJ scenario. One matinee that none of us can see, and only one public performance. I hope that number increases as the season progresses!

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I do agree.

I recommended several friends and family to look at the R&J segment of the BBC Shakespeare 400,  programme and had such an unexpectedly enthusiastic response from a lot of non-balletomanes.

It seems to me Naghdi/Ball have the capacity to reach an audience- they have  a presence.

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THE CASTING IS GOING UP ON THE ROH WEBSITE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!

 

I was puzzled by the small cast listed for Chroma in the McGregor bill until I remembered that guests from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (who have it in their rep) will be included. Should be interesting.

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I was puzzled by the small cast listed for Chroma in the McGregor bill until I remembered that guests from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (who have it in their rep) will be included. Should be interesting.

 

That's interesting.  In a similar light the Bolshoi during their tour of NYC next July are to do Jewels with dancers from the Bolshoi (obviously), NYCB and the POB.   

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That's interesting.  In a similar light the Bolshoi during their tour of NYC next July are to do Jewels with dancers from the Bolshoi (obviously), NYCB and the POB.

 

 

Gosh I would love to see that!

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In an interval of Frankenstein last night – and thinking that Nehemiah Kish was doing rather well with The Creature – it struck me how uneven the casting for the Autumn felt as far as the RB’s male principals are concerned. I have now checked and have found that the pattern is as follows (in the order Fille; Anastasia; Chroma; New McGregor; Carbon Life; Nutcracker:

 

Federico Bonelli: 0 – 3 – 5 – 3 – 0 – 5 = 16

Matthew Golding: 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 2 = 2 (and those Nutcrackers are in Jan.)

Nehemiah Kish: 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 2 = 2 (also Jan 2017 Nutcrackers)

Steven McRae: 3 – 4 – 5 – 3 – 0 – 2 =  17 (and featured in all four programmes)

Vadim Muntagirov: 4 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 3 = 7

Thiago Soares: 0 – 3 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 = 3

Edward Watson: 0 – 3 – 0 – 3 – 3 – 0 = 9

 

I am among the many on here who really want to see the up-and-coming talent – including Muntagirov – but this sort of disparity raises all sorts of questions.

Edited by capybara
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It's not really the appropriate repertory for most of them, though, is it? Golding, Kish, Soares, and Watson aren't going to dance Colas.  Nor are Golding, Kish, and Soares the types of male dancer that McGregor appears to prefer, which is either short and fast or tall and hyperextended.  Muntagirov also has other announced commitments during this time frame. 

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These statistics raise a number of questions. Did the dancers who have virtually no shows before Christmas request a long break? If not, what message is the Director seeking to deliver.

 

I was surprised that Muntagirov did not get cast in Anastasia. One might think a Russian, who is also a very fine dancer,  would feature in this ballet and enhance the pas de deux .

 

It would appear that Steven McRae, excellent dancer that he is, has to be in everything. Perhaps his two Nutcrackers could have been given to the younger dancers that we all want to see, especially as a guest has been brought in to dance with him.

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In an interval of Frankenstein last night – and thinking that Nehemiah Kish was doing rather well with The Creature –

Getting off-topic, I know, but I thought it was supposed to be Hirano last night?

 

it struck me how uneven the casting for the Autumn felt as far as the RB’s male principals are concerned. I have now checked and have found that the pattern is as follows

[snip]

 

I am among the many on here who really want to see the up-and-coming talent – including Muntagirov – but this sort of disparity raises all sorts of questions.

 

These statistics raise a number of questions. Did the dancers who have virtually no shows before Christmas request a long break? If not, what message is the Director seeking to deliver.

This is nothing unusual in recent years, I'm afraid. Nor, for that matter, in the more distant past: I remember back in the early 1990s counting up Ravenna Tucker's (announced) performances *over the year* and I think there were 10. Over the entire year. Other dancers, male and female, have been similarly disadvantaged recently: do you remember the comment on how little Ed Watson was scheduled in this season? Soares has had what you might call a raw deal in the past, Zenaida Yanowsky too this season - I was fully expecting to hear that she was retiring at the end of the season, but she's scheduled for several things next season. Look at Roberta Marquez earlier this season. It's not that unusual, although what conclusions people should draw is indeed a major question.

 

I was surprised that Muntagirov did not get cast in Anastasia. One might think a Russian, who is also a very fine dancer,  would feature in this ballet and enhance the pas de deux .

This has been discussed elsewhere, maybe in the Anastasia thread? I'm not sure whether his commitments elsewhere preclude it, but if they don't I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him dancing the First officer. I'm not sure what else he would be eligible to dance in this production - are you familiar with it? The only other male roles of note are the Tsar, Rasputin and Anna's husband.

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Apart from the fact that some of the dancers may have commitments elsewhere it would appear from the casting announced for the first booking period that the AD is intent on developing some of the younger dancers. Whether this is really the case will become clearer when the casting for the Sleeping Beauty is announced. A good AD develops his company and individual dancers, maintains technical standards and keeps both his dancers and his audience happy. He has to do all this through his programming and casting decisions. Casting dancers like Hay, Ball or Clarke in major roles reduces the opportunities for older dancers to  perform just as giving every principal three or four performances in each three act ballet performed during the course of a season reduces opportunities for the talented youngster.If an AD does not undertake succession planning he will suddenly find himself short of experienced dancers. The company has many fine dancers, The majority of its principal dancers are in their thirties and some in their late thirties which unfortunately means that retirement may not be that far off. If only established dancers are cast in main roles then in a few years the AD will have to get his cheque book out in order to buy in replacement dancers. The AD needs to take positive steps in order to avoid this. If he is to  ensure that the replacement dancers will be there when they are needed he will have to ensure that talented young dancers are cast at the expense of older dancers. We can't have it both ways develop the young and at the same time give the older dancers performances as well.

 

This season opens with Ashton's Fille. Unfortunately the Ashton repertory has become a specialist area  over the past forty years, and not everyone's technique is up to Fille. Ashton is far more difficult to dance than it looks and the choreography of Fille is a real challenge. If MacMillan is a test of stamina, Ashton is a test of stamina and technique and not every principal has the technique for it or wants to be tested in that way. As far as Anastasia is concerned with the exception of the classical pas de deux it is essentially the story of Anna Anderson the woman who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia. There are a limited number of named male characters and, except for the classical pas de deux, it calls for dance actors rather than purely classical ones. In the circumstances I don't find the limited number of performances allocated to some of  the dancers who have been mentioned at all surprising. Given the age profile of the principal dancers this should be a time of change for the company as the new guard replaces the old. The announced casting suggests that just for once the transition is being planned.

Edited by FLOSS
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It's not really the appropriate repertory for most of them, though, is it? 

 

If he is to  ensure that the replacement dancers will be there when they are needed he will have to ensure that talented young dancers are cast at the expense of older dancers. We can't have it both ways develop the young and at the same time give the older dancers performances as well.

 

 

I accept these points, of course. But I'm not sure that the rep. for the Autumn exploits the rich resources of the 'up and coming' brigade very much at all. One (or at the most two) Nutcrackers a piece hardly builds classical experience and confidence. And the presence of an all McGregor programme does not help the nurturing either, except in a very specific sense - several dancers appear to be in more than one work on this programme. Nor does the rep. capitalise on the immense talent of Muntagirov at the peak of his career in works which would seem made for him (and I actually think that ensuring your stars are 'shown off' to advantage is another dimension in programming). I don't know but, surely, guesting and other projects only come about if dancers are being under-utilised 'at home'. I want to see Vadim (and others) dancing here with their own company.

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I agree it's a shame that we have a triple bill in which all three pieces are in a style that does not suit the classical virtues of some the best dancers in the company.

Personally I would much have preferred a more varied triple bill.

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 Nutcracker is inevitable this Christmas as Sir Peter Wright celebrates his ninetieth birthday later this year. The distribution of the roles in Nutcracker means that some of the most likely candidates for promotion will get some time in the rehearsal studio with him which must be good for them. Sleeping Beauty starts just before Christmas and the combined effect of Fille and  these two ballets being programmed as they are means that the majority of company will be dancing a solid diet of classical choreography from September until mid October and again between late November until early March which must be good for the company's over all technical standards.

 

As far as the whole 2016 -2017 season is concerned I imagine that scheduling Anastasia at some point was inevitable and perhaps the way that things have been arranged means that the MacMillan stranglehold on the opening months of the season has finally been broken or at least its impact reduced. The company will not, I think, find itself embarking on Nutcracker and Beauty with dancers whose classical technique is rusty as a result of appearing for weeks at a time in a MacMillan blockbuster dance drama which gives the bulk of the dancers little opportunity to dance classical choreography. In fact something like seventy percent of the company's time in the first booking period will be taken up with rigorous classically based dance which seems to me to be a sensible preparation for the revival of Sleeping Beauty at Christmas. 

 

If I had anything to do with the company's programming there would be a lot more Ashton every season and the company would not be dancing as much McGregor as it usually does simply because I am not convinced that the sort of demands that he makes on his dancers are good for their bodies or their long term careers. While his dance works are clearly not going to cut short Watson's career the same may not be true  for the younger dancers who he favours. Given his seniority I assume that Watson could refuse to dance in his creations and is able to demand that switching between the extreme and relentless choreography which McGregor favours and more mainstream works should be gradual to enable his body to adjust. This is unlikely to be something that more junior dancers can demand and we shall have to wait a few more years before we know what effect, if any, McGregor's choreography has on those who perform in it.

 

I would ensure that ballets like Les Patineurs and Les Rendezvous were danced virtually every season because they give opportunities for a lot of dancers to perform and they require a solid classical technique and afford no opportunity for dancers to fudge steps or edit the choreography. Patineurs was a regular repertory piece at the opera house from 1946 to 1967 when it slipped out of the active repertory. I have always wondered whether the abandonment of ballets like Patineurs during the Macmillan directorship was a contributory factor in the company's technical decline which became all too obvious during Morrice's directorship . I would also try to ameliorate the effects of the stagione system of programming which was introduced during Dowell's directorship as it locks the entire company into performing a single ballet for months at a time with the occasional mixed bill for variety.

 

While I may miss Muntagirov during the first booking period I look forward to seeing Hayward, Naghdi, Stx-Brunell and Calvert make their debuts as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Clarke make his debut as her cavalier. I just hope that when it comes to the casting for Beauty that Hayward, Naghdi and Stix Brunell all appear as Aurora. If that happens and the company as a whole dances the ballet with a real sense of style then the absence or apparent under use  of dancers like Bonelli and Muntagirov will have been a price worth paying.

 

I think that we all need to remember that no principal dancer is equally good in every ballet in the company's repertory and that a season's repertory and the sequence in which ballets are performed will have an impact on which of the principals we see in performance and indeed should do so if we are not to see ballets undermined by miscasting. Management can of course programme works which suit the majority of the principals and  this will please their fans but it may not be good for the artistic health of the company as a whole. We should also remember that not every performance takes place on the main stage and that at least one or two of the "missing" principals may be involved in the creation and performance of  works to be performed elsewhere.

 

Whether any or all of the principal dancers have been hard done by will only become clear when the casting for the final booking period of the forthcoming season is announced. If some of the principal dancers feel that management does not respect them then we can expect to see them leave at the end of the current season. I think that we are unlikely to see many departures as the entire 2016 -17 season will have been discussed with each of the senior dancers. Some of the older dancers will inevitably step down from  roles that we admire them in because they feel that they can no longer do them justice. It is what happens with a ballet company. Ballet is essentially a young person's art form and dancers will say that just as they begin to really understand the great roles they begin to find that their physical ability to perform them is on the wane. The AD owes a duty to his entire company not just the select few. I think that we really shall have to wait until April/ May 2017 until we can begin to assess the AD's artistic decisions for the season as a whole.

Edited by FLOSS
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The AD owes a duty to his entire company not just the select few. I

 

Obviously but a key part of that duty is also to capitalise on the talent (burgeoning and established) at the AD's disposal at any given time. The phrase "use it or lose it" comes to mind a bit.

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Regarding the likes of experienced dancers such as Nunez and Lamb, I am surprised they even want to be cast as the SPF in the Nutcracker.  It always strikes me as being a bit boring for the female principal, having to wait so long to come on stage.  And then, the amount of dancing is actually quite small, isn't it?  I haven't seen the RB's version for quite some time, but does the male principal have more to do, or does he spend the same amount of time on stage as the female?  Or is it a case of bums on seats?  People expect to see principals when they come for their annual dose of ballet? 

 

Sorry if I sound a little bit disparaging about the Nutcracker.  I know it is a gorgeous looking ballet, with wonderful music, and very appropriate for Christmas, but I suspect the bulk of the audience are not the people who attend ballet regularly throughout the year. 

 

I agree with Floss about Les Patineurs.  I think I have seen it once in the last 20 years (?) when it was part of a triple bill.  Otherwise, it was always paired with The Tales of Beatrix Potter, which I just couldn't stand, so I never saw it more often. 

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Fonty. The problem with the SPF is that it is incredibly challenging technically so you can't give it to anyone. It is one way of ensuring that the female principal dancers are up to the mark. Perhaps the female principals feel that if they don't dance SPF people will think that they can't.

 

Capybara. I would try to restore a greater element of choice in the programming by trying to revert to the repertory system. What would your solution be? Wall to wall MacMillan would provide the opportunities for the principals to dance but it would not do the technical standard of the company as a whole that much good. Over the years the principal's needs have been met by the company but this has often been at the expense of the younger dancers and their career development. 

Edited by FLOSS
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I agree with Floss about Les Patineurs.  I think I have seen it once in the last 20 years (?) when it was part of a triple bill.  Otherwise, it was always paired with The Tales of Beatrix Potter, which I just couldn't stand, so I never saw it more often.

 

Interestingly BRB performed Les Rendezvous last year as part of a triple bill with Facade and Kin. The 2nd years at the Royal Ballet School performed Les Rendezvous at the Main Stage performance last year and I think they will be doing Les Patineurs at this summer's performance. Seems like the school is doing its bit to keep the Ashton heritage alive.

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Getting off-topic, I know, but I thought it was supposed to be Hirano last night? This is nothing unusual in recent years, I'm afraid. Nor, for that matter, in the more distant past: I remember back in the early 1990s counting up Ravenna Tucker's (announced) performances *over the year* and I think there were 10. Over the entire year. Other dancers, male and female, have been similarly disadvantaged recently: do you remember the comment on how little Ed Watson was scheduled in this season? Soares has had what you might call a raw deal in the past, Zenaida Yanowsky too this season - I was fully expecting to hear that she was retiring at the end of the season, but she's scheduled for several things next season. Look at Roberta Marquez earlier this season. It's not that unusual, although what conclusions people should draw is indeed a major question. This has been discussed elsewhere, maybe in the Anastasia thread? I'm not sure whether his commitments elsewhere preclude it, but if they don't I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him dancing the First officer. I'm not sure what else he would be eligible to dance in this production - are you familiar with it? The only other male roles of note are the Tsar, Rasputin and Anna's husband.

For what is Yanowsky scheduled next season? She's not cast as the Tsarina in Anastasia which I would have expected, isn't in Fille or Nutcracker and isn't in the McGegor....

Edited by Jamesrhblack
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