SheilaC

Having heard the music again on Radio 3 at lunchtime I would love to see Van Manen's Four Schumann Pieces again. It's most unlikely that the Royal still has any rights to it, and absolutely certain that we wouldn't see Dowell in it again (one of his best ballets as a dancer) or the divine Jenny Penney..... but the current batch of dancers would be very good. Other than that any of the following would be more than acceptable : Fille, The Dream, Symphonic Variations, Scenes de Ballet, Month in the Country, Monotones, Les Rendezvous: In the Night, Dances at a Gathering, Afternoon of a Faun: Symphony, Diversions, Concerto, Gloria, Song of the Earth; Symphony in C, Apollo, Serenade, Ballet Imperial, Night Shadow, Four Temperaments, Violin Concerto, Theme and Variations, Symphony in 3 Movements; The Firebird, Les Sylphides; Checkmate; Dark Elegies, Jardin aux Lilas, Pillar of Fire _ very few would even be considered! plus Onegin, Giselle, Bayadere

But after that false ending Alain breaks into the room to rescue the love of his life, his red umbrella. An ending that proves conclusively, to me at least, how important Alain (and the dancer who created the role, Alexander Grant) was to Ashton; and that the caricature of a comic idiot that people rightly object to, is a gross misreading of Ashton’s ballet.

Yes, I've been thinking this. In particular of Cesar Morales who is not fully appreciated outside of BRB- a wonderful, sensitive artist, elegant, expressive, musical dancer with a beautiful line, a fine if subtle actor and sympathetic partner. His article in the latest Dance Europe and the video of it that Jan posted gives a fascinating account of his lifelong love of Swan Lake and his wish to dance Onegin.

It was available in Europe, I'm not sure if I bought it in Paris or England. It's actually rather disappointing , given it contains the fabulous Le Riche and Guillem. It's a film (not just a filmed performance) but their performances with the Royal Ballet were, in my view, much more thrilling than on this film. It was made during a tour of Japan. There are extra sections focusing on their preparations on tour before performing. It was very disappointing that although Guillem did perform at Le Riche's final performance at the Opera she refused to allow her contribution to be shown on film.

I've still not had an email about the change (just one asking me for feedback on last night's performance). Has anyone else not had one? The ROH also failed to send me an email 10 days ago to warn me that a SB tea and tour event I'd booked had been cancelled. I'd booked it partly because I was going to a performance that night. It didn't seem to occur to them that people would book the tour in tandem with a performance; or that people with a 400 mile round trip could easily switch. I only found out as I later got an email changing the date to 2 days later. Given the huge hike in hotel prices since lockdown there's no way I'm going to stay on. The box office told me, when I complained, that I should have had an email from the Tours section. I can't help wondering if the Tours section bothered to email anyone on the list. Or maybe I was just unlucky.

Janet and Odyssey are both right! BRB2 has 7 members from the main company and 5 young dancers who have been taken on especially for BRB2.

The Paris Opera has just announced its season. Yes, Fille is on, and not at the tail end of the season, as usual, but from 14 March, 14 performances, ending in a matinee on April 1. The classics start with Nutcracker, (Nureyev) 19 performances from December 8 to January 1. Then Don Q, 23 performances from March 21 to April 24. Giselle has 24 performances, from 29 April to 1 June. Swan Lake (Nureyev, of course) is on from June 20 to 14 July (17 performances). There's a varied Robbins bill- En Sol, In the Night, The Concert- in the autumn, 15 performances from 23 October to 10 November. Modern bills kick the season off, with an opening gala of new works by Xiu and Motin and a Crystal Pite (The Seasons Canon), and the same programme is given 16 further performances from 23 September to 12 October. There's a Kylian triple, ending with everyone's favourite( apart from me!) Petite Mort, throughout December, from 7 to 31. Ohad Naharin's Sadeh 21 is danced throughout February and ends 2 March. The Bejart Ballet Lausanne is the guest company in January (4-7). One of the most interesting programmes, as usual, is that chosen for the School: Les Forains (Petit- when I see it I always wonder if Ashton was influenced by it in the gypsy scene in Two Pigeons, either way it's a good ballet), a Kylian (Un Ballo) and ending with Lifar's Suite en Blanc (if only ENB would do it again). The Paris Opera Ballet School do it on April 13, 14, 16 and on the 17 it is presented in a gala by dance schools. (Invited schools include from Canada, Dutch, Milan, Hamburg, San Francisco, Royal Danish and our own RBS. It is also possible to book to see Paris Opera Ballet School class demonstrations on the Garnier stage in December (3-16) There aren't many matinees, they tend to be on a Sunday although occasionally there's one on a Saturday.

Now unavailable! It was a pity it started late last night, not on time. I watched the first couple but was disappointed when the second couple also chose Grand Pas Classique (an overrated piece in my view, was only bearable when Sylvie used to send it up with her everlasting holds on point and delicious grins) so went to bed, given the hour change. This morning I could tell it was still available but didn't have time to watch. And now the message comes up as unavailable. Might it appear on YouTube?

It's called Sounds, Geoff, and everyone

There are some rather tempting programmes eg Raymonda (December), Giselle (october;), 2 Ratmansky ballets to Stravinsky: The Fairy's Kiss, The Firebird (June), a Dutch triple: ballets by Kylian, Van Manen, David Dawson , Milena Sidorova (April); the (full length) Frida (February). There's less Balanchine than DNB sometimes offers, but the amazingly modern Four Temperaments is in a quadruple bill that includes ballets by Van Manen and Brandsen.

The Theatre des Champs Elysees has today announced next season's programme. It includes Boston Ballet - May 27 - 30 (2024) bringing a triple bill that includes a Kylian piece (Bella Figura) and a Forsyth (Blake Works 3). Dancers in the company include Jeffrey Cirio and Michaela DePrince. Also Norwegian Ballet - April 4-7 (2024), bringing Pite's Light of Passage. Company dancers include Xander Parish and Yolanda Correa ( a wonderful Cuban dancer who is returning to Norway after several years in Germany). Also Ballet Preljocaj, bringing 2 of the director's ballets, including one to Les Noces. For music lovers there are operas, chamber music concerts, piano recitals from world famous pianists (including 2 by my favourite British pianist, Benjamin Grosvenor) The Paris Opera Ballet will announce its season on 29 March. There are rumours that they may include Ashton's Fille .....

Very sad news for all of us fans. When I spoke to him last Saturday he told me he'd just heard that he will be dancing in 2 performances of Still Life, as the zebra, in which he has always excelled. (Apollo won't be cast until Patricia Neary arrives- so who knows?). Thank goodness I'd already booked all 4 performances in Birmingham, so will definitely see him. I have often thought that BRB dancers tend to stay too long in the company, a safe home. Those who move to another company and then return (eg Iain MacKay) are even better dancers because they have been exposed to new balletic challenges. But personally I regret that he's not moving to a company that has a stronger classical rep where he could continue to develop his already strong technique. I have been watching and admiring his career for very many years as I first saw him when he was a very young student at Yorkshire Ballet Seminars, as it was then called. He so impressed Marguerite Porter, the director then, that she arranged for him to gain a place at White Lodge. He continued to attend Yorkshire Ballet Seminars while he was an RBS student. His dancing will always be treasured for his line, style, technique, acting ability, charisma; and he himself for the warm and generous personality.

One of my most embarrassing moments was, many years ago, at the premiere of a new production of Swan Lake in Leeds, by Northern Ballet Theatre. I was sat in the back row of the stalls but my concentration was badly affected by someone standing behind me who kept moving about. In the end I turned and glared fiercely at the poor man....... who turned out to be Christopher Gable, the NBT artistic director and whose production it was. He was motionless after that. But I was mortified, he was-is- one of my favourite male dancers ever and not just because he was the most inspired partner of Lynn, but also because of his technique, his acting ability, his charisma- I often think of him when I see Matthew Ball who has similar qualities. And yes, he was initially in the opera ballet, it was Lynn who persuaded the touring group management to employ him as she knew he'd be an ideal partner for her. RIP both of them.

I do agree, NiniGabriel, what a stunning dancer Haydee was. Although in my post I referred to a wonderful performance I saw Lynn do in Onegin at the end of her career, an equally amazing performance was the first time I ever saw Onegin, with Haydee and Cragun in the final pas de deux. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing, so fast, so passionate, seemingly improvised in the heat of the moment. And she was equally remarkable in some of the other ballets you mention. I know she still performs character roles such as the Nurse in R&J. I believe that Seymour and Haydee, plus Sibley, were all in the same year at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School. What a trio!

In Sunderland last week I was disappointed that BRB did not include a reference to Lynn on their cast sheets, even though they included an acknowledgement of a previous member of the orchestra who had died. (BRB has since posted about her death on their social media.) It would have been very fitting to mention her on the Swan Lake cast sheet as it was in Swan Lake, touring in Australia with the Royal Ballet touring group, the predecessor of BRB, that she made her name. She performed Odette/Odile in the first ever full length Swan Lake I ever saw, in Birmingham, I couldn't believe dancing could be so breath takingly beautiful. The previous night I had seen her in her first dramatic role for MacMillan as the young girl in The Burrow. One of the last times I saw her dance was in Onegin with LFB when she was quite astonishing, absolutely convincing me that she was going to succumb to Onegin in that final, marvellous, pas de deux. In between so many wonderful performances, including The Invitation, The Two Pigeons, MacMillan's Le Baiser de la Fee with Beriosova and MacLeary in Edinburgh, Concerto, Anastasia single act with LFB as well as the later 3 act version, Juliet- her first performance but not, of course , the premiere - Images of Love, Anastasia, Mayerling, Brahms Waltzes, Month in the Country, Dances at a Gathering. I was never able to get to London to see her in The Concert, a great regret as she apparently was hilarious in it, she was gifted in comedy as well as drama. Not to mention Northern Ballet Theatre's A Simple Man, with Christopher Gable. Her partnership with Gable was close and it was very sad that it couldn't continue after he gave up dancing; had they continued dancing together it would have been one of the greatest ballet partnerships of all time. Whilst her fame is primarily as a dramatic dancer the quality of her dancing was exceptional. An earlier contribution, comparing her with Fonteyn, talked of her as being earth bound. This could be true in some roles but, especially when younger and before she lost weight, she had the most wonderful fluid quality to her dancing as though she didn't have a bone in her body; it's trite to say poetry in motion- but that's how it seemed. And of course, she was so expressive, her emotions were portrayed though her movement. When young she often rubbished classical ballet, always regarding herself as a rebel, but you can see the quality of her classical dancing in her Giselle on the DVD her great friend Nureyev danced with her, or her Sleeping Beauty pas de deux with him in his film I am a Dancer. (One of the best Vision scenes in Sleeping Beauty I ever saw was of her with Peter Martins at the Coli- her dancing just melted). She danced with her whole body with wonderful epaulement and beautiful feet, and so musically, she could play with the music. I admired the ballets she choreographed without being a total fan. She also directed companies. She was a gifted coach. So altogether she made a huge contribution to ballet. But, sad though her death is, she lives on in the astonishing number of ballets created on her and which have continued to be performed. How many other dancers have created so many ballets which live on?

Balanchine had links with the Paris Opera Ballet, notably in 1947 when he created the original version of Symphony in C (initially called Le Palais de Cristal) and mounted Apollo, Serenade and a lesser known work. In the '70s, over 3 seasons, he mounted other major works, including Prodigal Son and Agon on the company. Subsequently other staff from New York City Ballet mounted other works but it is only in this season that the company has danced Ballet Imperial and Who Cares. I saw the twelfth and thirteenth performance of that double bill. A friend who had been to a performance at the start of the run had been very disappointed by the standard of dancing. By the time I saw them they had settled more into the ballets but even so I was surprised that the dancers hadn't sufficiently mastered the Balanchine style and attack, given the company's long exposure to his ballets - and that the redoubtable Patricia Neary was one of the rehearsal directors. The most memorable episode of the first performance was at the curtain call when the Opera director came on stage with the new Director of Dance, Jose Martinez, to announce not one but two promotions to the etoile status (principal). The first was to Hannah O'Neill, a dancer trained in Japan, then Australian Ballet School, who has danced in Paris for nearly 13 years, who was given many interesting roles until Aurelie Dupont became director. She seemed taken by surprise at the announcement but her partner, Marc Moreau, who was very supportive of her, seemed flabbergasted when it came to his turn, bursting into tears and finding it hard to compose himself. Whilst he's a dancer I've always admired, being very versatile, adaptable for all types of ballet, not least contemporary, a solid performer, he was never an obvious candidate for the highest classical status, although he deserves it for his contribution to the company. Neither of them was originally cast in that performance of Ballet Imperial, being late substitutes, which also added to the surprise element. He couldn't even celebrate straight away as after the interval he had to burst on the stage in the main male role in Who Cares. He partnered the three female dancers (Marine Ganio, who also seems to be given more roles under Martinez; Silvia Saint Martin; Heloise Bourdon) well enough but the next night Mathieu Ganio had more panache. Neither came close to the former NYCB dancer, Sean Lavery., who made it his own. The soloists in both performances danced well but didn't have the necessary attack while the female corps dancers in the first part of the ballet were merely decorative, the men fared better as the choreography is faster for them. The decor and costumes are different from City Ballet's, less jazzy costumes and the skyscrapers are more vertical but move after each dance. Ballet Imperial disappointed a little, too. Partly the music was played too slowly- like that for so many ballets nowadays, Although the ballet is primarily a tribute to Russian classical ballet it should still have New York undertones, with speed and tension. which slow music undermines. The women principals, O'Neill and Bourdon, shaped their movements well but Auric Bezard was no more impressive than at the Etoiles gala, seemingly bored and sometimes a bit late in his partnering. At least the company did the tutu version, which looks so much more imperial and classical than the tunic version called Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 2. Tonight there will be a 'Live' showing in cinemas so it may come out as a video some time. Despite my slight disappointment it was at least good to see some Balanchine and not just the whole or parts of Jewels which many companies seem to rely on. It is good that BRB will be doing Apollo in the summer- I hope Desmond Kelly will be able to coach it as he was one of Britain's best Apollos. And we wait to see what the next RB season offers. One of the black and white ballets such as Agon or Four Temperaments would be great and one of the classical ballets, Symphony in C or Serenade would be wonderful. One can only dream.

It has already been reported that the main Ailey company will be performing at Sadler's Wells in September (5 - 16), bringing 4 programmes; an all-Ailey bill which includes some ballets that he created to music by Duke Ellington but ending with his marvellous Revelations, which also closes 2 of the other programmes. Other programmes include, variously, pieces by Kyle Abraham,Twyla Tharp, Ronald Brown among others. The Theatre Royal, Newcastle, has now announced that Ailey 2, the company of younger dancers, will be performing 2 performances in October (24, 25) bringing pieces by Robert Battle and Francesca Harper, an excerpt from William Forsythe's Enemy in the Figure, ending with Revelations. The company will be presented by Dance Consortium so it is bound to be appearing in other cities across England and probably Scotland. If you've never seen Revelations you haven't lived!. It's moving and life affirming, the company still dances it as if it's brand new, a tribute to African-American culture (if a trifle outmoded, 20th rather than 21st century) and at the end the audience is moved to join in the celebration.

If it's Nureyev's production it will be more steps.... too many (More is less)

I totally agree and I rate artistry, lyricism , musicality and style above the ability to thrash out fouettés. I once saw a performance of Swan Lake by Zen where her fouettés unravelled; but her Act 4 Odette was the best I've ever seen.

I most associate her with a remarkable solo, almost certainly by Bejart, about a squeaky door, I think, quite extraordinary, unfortunately I can't recall, or find, the name. The last time I saw Bejart in person he was sat at the opera house with Maina Gielgud in the Crush room, long before it became a restaurant. Their continuing affection and understanding radiated out.

I attended both performances on Saturday. I agree that Polina Semionova was excellent and I always thoroughly enjoy Brandon Lawrence's performances, lovely personality, style and jump, although I wouldn't put him in the top rank of classical dancers yet. The whole cast at the evening performance were good, better overall than at the matinee, which gave less experienced dancers a chance., although Rachele Pizzillo as a courtesan and Hungarian princess, and Yuki Sugiura as a 'swan maiden' were impressive. However, I thought Yaoqian Shang was as good, in her way, as Polina as Odette. I first saw her do the dual role in Sunderland some years back, when she was new to the role. Her second act then blew me away, she had something of the liquid Lyrical quality of the young Lynn Seymour's Odette. In Act 3 her fouettes then were an unmitigated disaster. I had booked to see her do Swan Lake a week before lockdown, in 2020, but, to my great disappointment she injured herself that morning in class (the bonus was that casting changed and Brandon did an extra show). This year she's not going to Sunderland so I booked for the matinee at Birmingham. Once again her movement was beautifully articulated, musical, expressive, eloquent, even more than in her early performance. Semionova also shaped her movement beautifully, capitalising on her height to create dramatic arabesques, not unlike Zen's (Yankovsky) who has a similar physique. However, come Act 3, Semionova was the more brilliant technically as after a successful start with the fouetees, Shang lost confidence half way through and it all unravelled. Another pleasure at the matinee was to see Max Maslen as Siegfried, the first performance after the announcement of his promotion. He always comes across as sincere and believable in any role he undertakes and he is a sympathetic partner and fine dancer. I was more moved at the end of his performance than I usually am nowadays at Swan Lake, and Wright's production has a more dramatic ending than most productions. so it really does seem climactic.

Gielgud danced for a couple of years with LFB in the early to mid '70s. I remember seeing her dance one of the Tchaikovsky classics in Newcastle, with Adam Luders (later a luminary of NYCB)- not a predictable combination!

He was very glamorous when young. I saw him several times as the father in La Dame aux Camelias as he kept up his connection with Paris Opera Ballet until recently; I always felt it was a privilege to see him.

Tonight, on Radio 3, Live from the Barbican, the programme includes Petrushka (will we ever see that again?) and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. (7.30 - 9.30)

Today's Guardian reports that the Playhouse in Edinburgh had to stop a performance of Jersey Boys last week after a fight erupted! It quotes the Stage stating that ATG is working with producers and marketing to modify ad campaigns for its theatres. Apparently theatre staff face much abuse, occasionally even physical.