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Royal Ballet: The Two Pigeons, Monotones I & II, November 2015 & Rhapsody January 2016


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So happy that new audiences are loving this ballet, it should never have left the RB rep,  I first saw Two Pigeons fifty years ago in a double bill with Prince Igor and last saw it in Birmingham on the night Janet McNulty describes.  At Covent Garden I saw the pas de deux in a Gala in the 90's when despite the sight of Markarova comparing the show with a swan on her head and a teenage Carlos Acosta in a red sequinned jacket making his ROH debut, the naughty pigeons on duty that night completely stole the show.  Perhaps it was their 'immoral' antics that got the ballet mothballed, I can't remember the house rocking with laughter like that before or since. 

 

With its Parisian setting and quintessentially French score it was totally appropriate to dedicate the performance to the people of the City of Light.

 

After all those years of watching the ballet I experienced a special treat last night as Laura Morera was the most perfect gypsy girl I've ever seen, If I were a man I'd want to run off with her too.  Morera seems to 'get' Ashton .as does relative newcomer to the genre, Muntagirov.  I hope I don't have to wait too long to see them in Sylvia together, a ballet that would be perfect for them.

 

Heartfelt thanks to Kevin O'Hare and Christopher Carr.

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I am really looking forward to seeing this again.   I have such happy memories of the last time I saw it, with BRB in London.

 

Not so many comments on Monotones.  Is this because people didn't enjoy it, or for some other reason.  I shall be interested in how this is performed.  I've noticed before that it is often the ballets by Ashton that do not require any acting, simply pure dance, that tend to suffer a little when I have seen them.  In particular, timing often eludes some of the dancers when performing a piece where everyone should be moving as a single entity. 

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So happy that new audiences are loving this ballet, it should never have left the RB rep,  I first saw Two Pigeons fifty years ago in a double bill with Prince Igor and last saw it in Birmingham on the night Janet McNulty describes.  At Covent Garden I saw the pas de deux in a Gala in the 90's when despite the sight of Markarova comparing the show with a swan on her head and a teenage Carlos Acosta in a red sequinned jacket making his ROH debut, the naughty pigeons on duty that night completely stole the show.  Perhaps it was their 'immoral' antics that got the ballet mothballed, I can't remember the house rocking with laughter like that before or since. 

 

With its Parisian setting and quintessentially French score it was totally appropriate to dedicate the performance to the people of the City of Light.

 

After all those years of watching the ballet I experienced a special treat last night as Laura Morera was the most perfect gypsy girl I've ever seen, If I were a man I'd want to run off with her too.  Morera seems to 'get' Ashton .as does relative newcomer to the genre, Muntagirov.  I hope I don't have to wait too long to see them in Sylvia together, a ballet that would be perfect for them.

 

Heartfelt thanks to Kevin O'Hare and Christopher Carr.

It was nearly 20 years ago that Morera danced the Gypsy Girl in her school performance. 

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So pleased other people's memories are so much better than mine! Really interesting comments thank you. I did see RBS performance all those years ago and I loved it. Saw it at the rehearsal on Tuesday and loved it all over again. Young man suited McRae really well and I marvelled again at his batterie. Ashton created such a beautiful piece that illustrated the technique of his era and gave such good opportunities for acting and building character. As it was a rehearsal I make no other comments on performance.

I also enjoyed Monotones 1 and 2 when I got accustomed to the caps. However, on reflection, they worked really well. We were able to appreciate line and position. Timing in 1 was a bit off at times but it was a rehearsal and I am sure it will be tighter in performance. So good to see Watson dancing so beautifully and not having to contort his body so much. I wish he was in more.

I do hope people buy tickets, I came home feeling I had had a real treat. Looking forward to the performance on 24th!

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I love Monotones and was going to save up my comments for a fuller account after seeing at least this evening's cast as well.As some of you appear a little concerned by the silence on the topic I will simply say at this stage that I thought that the first night cast in Monotones 1 had got it nailed this time but that I thought that Monotones 2 was slightly off. I don't know whether it was the presence of a new member in the trio who had the effect of upsetting its equilibrium and they were still in the process of "forming" the team or whether it was something else.

 

The silence about Monotones might just be because there are a lot of people on this forum who haven't seen Two Pigeons danced before or have never seen it cast and danced so well. The contrast between the Young Girl and the Gypsy was absolutely right. It will be interesting to see whether the other casts prove to be so carefully selected and balanced.

 

Kevin O'Hare said that he had been persuaded to stage Pigeons because it was the ballet that most people had asked to be revived. If you want other Ashton ballets to be revived let him know. Someone has taken the the opportunity to attach a list of ballets to be revived to his/her appreciation of last night's performance on the ROH site.

Edited by FLOSS
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It was nearly 20 years ago that Morera danced the Gypsy Girl in her school performance. 

 

Back in the 60's Lesley Collier danced the young girl at the RBS matinee,  Sadly I missed it but remember going to see one of the performances the students subsequently gave at Holland Park, if I remember rightly the young girl I saw was Meryl Chapell.

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I commented on Monotones in my piece above, and Floss pretty much echoed what I thought of the performance. I too will be there tonight and it will be interesting to see the differences. I just don't see how last night's casts will be bettered, except perhaps the potential for M2 being a bit more on the nail than last night's cast.

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Management should be pleased with the press reviews on the ROH website. Perhaps someone can tell me what are the threadbare joke that Judith Mackrell refers to in her criticism? From the reaction last night there weren't that many people in the audience who were familiar with the ballet. Perhaps she is just trying to establish that she isn't a pushover for the Royal Ballet. Her suggestion that the ballet might be better in one act has a horrible feeling of deja vue about it sounds like another bid to establish her independence too. Wasn't Sylvia "improved by being reduced to one act at one stage?

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Mono 1 will be the same cast tonight - and they were sublime. I have that first half section's music (of Mono 1) as an earworm, that's been there since Monday's rehearsal. Not complaining though  :-)  I do seem to prefer 1 to 2, though both are amongst my favourite Ashton pieces. Will be happy to watch as many as I can.

Two Pigeons was very enjoyable too - though for me, the gypsies did go on a bit. And in the relative dark (centre stage excepted). Loved the pdds though and will look forward to seeing the various casts.

 

Certainly gladdens the heart, after the somewhat doom and gloom and death of the start of the season.

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Well, we are talking about Madame Non here! 

 

I wish I could find the piece on line, but I clearly remember that it was suggested that she appear in Monotones, and she said she would not do so unless they got rid of the caps.

 

Monotones is not the only Ashton ballet she refused to dance.  She once said she would not dance in Fille because it was 'too difficult and too stupid'.  I suppose she meant the chickens?

 

Linda

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Monotones is not the only Ashton ballet she refused to dance.  She once said she would not dance in Fille because it was 'too difficult and too stupid'.  I suppose she meant the chickens?

 

Linda

 

Well I don't suppose she would have been required to be a chicken... now that would have been worth seeing. But strange that she apparently couldn't suspend disbelief, as we all have to do so often in the theatre.

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Thought Monotones I & ll very well danced - so well rehearsed. Very impressed. Loved Two Pigeons - enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. I love Salenko and Macrae together - great onstage presence and I thought they were excellent. In fact the only thing which disappointed were the rows of empty seats in the Amphi - sides rows C/D/E/F practically empty.

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Another lovely performance, and I preferred M2's cast tonight (Arestis, Hirano and Kish) to last night's. Salenko and McRae are a lovely partnership, and although they gave a very sweet and beautifully danced performance, they didn't have quite the same impact as Lauren and Vadim.

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It's a pity the reviews are too late to save ticket sales, at least for this evening. There are a truly shocking number of unsold seats :(

 

On a purely selfish note, my friend and I were able to spend the whole evening in the posh seats instead of standing! The ground floor was pretty full, with a few seats free in the stalls circle.

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After some of the offerings that have graced the stage recently it comes as a pleasant surprise to watch a programme of ballets made by someone who knew what he was doing theatrically and choreographically.Ashton had a complete understanding of how long a particular pas should last; how to make his dancers look good on stage;how to create characters and give them depth through classroom steps and natural un-balletic gestures;the need to modify the speed and the direction of movement during the course of a pas and finally how to tell a story.

 

Why are his works given so little stage time at Covent Garden during the course of a season? Is it their apparent lack of seriousness,their lack of popularity with some dancers because they must never let the audience see how difficult the choreography is or fashion and the fear that comparison with acclaimed new works may reveal how threadbare the new works are?

FLOSS, I'm afraid we might just have to accept the sad possibility that the decision has been made somewhere that RB is, if anything, a MacMillan company these days, not an Ashton one. I think I've said before that the modern attitude to Ashton seems to be similar to the attitude to Sullivan's music - something that's a lot deeper and more difficult than it appears on the surface is, these days, being judged only by the surface impression and found wanting compared with things that are more overtly flashy, emotional, or obviously difficult. So Ashton is being treated as the optional appetiser or the pretty dessert while MacMillan, Balanchine, and contemporary choreographers are the main course.

 

Judging from tweets by the dancers during rehearsal and performance, I don't think Ashton is unpopular with dancers, far from it. However, his work is more idealised than the nitty gritty of MacMillan and more pretty and joyous than the "this is serious ballet business" Balanchine rep, and maybe people these days are too jaded to see beyond that. Especially since the difficulty of some of his ballets means that the standard of dancing by the corps isn't always all that it could be (then again, if the training is directed toward the current fashion for huge extensions, deadly slow music, and Russian expansiveness, it's going to be at odds with the speed and lightness required to perform the Ashton repertoire well). There just seem to be a lot of things lining up to basically mean that the easy decision is to sideline Ashton and just show one or two of his ballets now and then as a sort of vague wave of the hand toward the existence of the company's founder choreographer, and then breathe a sigh of relief ("OK, ticked that box for this season") and go onto what really matters, which is basically stuff with more overt sex and violence (and of course acrobatics) in it.

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Kevin O'Hare said that he had been persuaded to stage Pigeons because it was the ballet that most people had asked to be revived. If you want other Ashton ballets to be revived let him know. Someone has taken the the opportunity to attach a list of ballets to be revived to his/her appreciation of last night's performance on the ROH site.

The AD of the Royal Ballet had to be persuaded to revive a major work by the company's founder choreographer? That's pitiful.

 

Like I said, I think Ashton is getting perilously close to being a lost cause. Such a shame.

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I hadn't seen either before last night and had plumped for a cheap seat in the Amphi which proved to have a surprisingly good view ... and no neighbours!  I thought Monotones was a joy, despite the attendance of the local tuberculosis ward.  Pigeons - agree with ZXDave about the gypsies, but overall this had a great upbeat atmosphere, with lots of genuine laughter,  and I thought Steven, Iana and Fumi were  all excellent and very well suited to their respective roles.

Steven has also been using my distant iPhone picture of the curtain call on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - think I deserve being comped a ticket  in return ;)

 

 

p.s. I just noticed when googling 'two pigeons reviews' that after the Telegraph results there is one for 'Pigeon Control Product Reviews'  Thankfully not needed last night!

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I haven't thought of writing to RB/AD with a wish list since Dowell's days. When I did I got an amazingly detailed letter - quite candid - including reasons why Guillem wouldn't do My Brother, My Sisters and the role of Ashton in the rep. But I think all of us should do it since e-media does make it so much easier. I'd like Sylvia back, Les Illuminations, Jazz Calendar, Daphnis in original set, I'd like Symphonic and Scènes on a permanent loop! I do think all of these are a good fit with other parts of repertoire and don't exist in some sort of Ashtonian bubble.

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I wished they'd never dropped Daphnis for so long.  11 years out of the repertory, is it?  My brain is saying something about 2004 - although I think it might actually have been earlier than that, because that sounds ridiculously recent.

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I'm afraid we might just have to accept the sad possibility that the decision has been made somewhere that RB is, if anything, a MacMillan company these days, not an Ashton one.

If this is true - and although I have no evidence I fear you may be right - it is a disgrace. This will also be v damaging long-term to the reputation of the RB, as Ashton is something we are known for around the world, and we have yet to grow a choreographer of equal stature for the 21st century.

 

Does anyone know how strong the voice of the Ashton estate is at the RB? I mean as opposed to the power exercised by Macmillan's widow (a complicating factor when it comes to Kevin O'Hare's planning but this may not be the place to discuss that)?

 

I haven't thought of writing to RB/AD with a wish list since Dowell's days...But I think all of us should do it since e-media does make it so much easier.

Yes, count me in. Who is the right person to lead a petition, who will organise it - and where can I sign?!

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Judging from tweets by the dancers during rehearsal and performance, I don't think Ashton is unpopular with dancers, far from it. However, his work is more idealised than the nitty gritty of MacMillan and more pretty and joyous than the "this is serious ballet business" Balanchine rep, and maybe people these days are too jaded to see beyond that. Especially since the difficulty of some of his ballets means that the standard of dancing by the corps isn't always all that it could be (then again, if the training is directed toward the current fashion for huge extensions, deadly slow music, and Russian expansiveness, it's going to be at odds with the speed and lightness required to perform the Ashton repertoire well).

 

It is good to hear that Ashton is popular with the current crop of dancers.  I did wonder if, in the past, the dancers themselves were the reason that certain Ashton works were performed so rarely. 

 

If, as AD, you feel that the majority of your principals are not going to excel in those works, either because they are physically or technically unsuited to them, you are not likely to think about staging them. 

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As to the precise place that Ashton's works currently play in the Royal Ballet's repertory we shall have to wait and see. This May we had one of the best revivals of Fille that we have had for some time and now we have a very fine revival of Pigeons and the return of Monotones 1 and 2 in better shape than it was when both parts were first revived.As to the AD's views about Ashton's works Dance Links for 26th October has an interview which Kevin O'Hare gave to the Independent which bears careful reading. Most of it is about Ashton's works and I have the feeling that it was intended as much as anything as a puff for the current mixed bill.In it he says "Ashton will always be essential to the Royal Ballet because his works are our heritage" later on he says "his(Ashton's) works are an important part of the Royal Ballet repertory today, perfectly complimenting the classics of Kenneth MacMillan and our exciting choreographers of today, Wayne MacGregor, Christopher Wheeldon and Liam Scarlett".

 

As far as I know the Ashton Trust is intended to provide authorised coaches much as the Balanchine Trust and the Tudor Trust do rather than to act as an advocate for his works. As many of you know Ashton left his works to a number of legatees the precise details about ownership are on the Trust's website.There were specific bequests to named legatees and the residue, which comprises the bulk of his output passed to his nephew. Not all of the original specified legatees were dancers and now many of the works that were left to them have passed to people with no connection with ballet.I have no idea about how the Trust is funded and what resources it has available to it. I believe that the Trust's long term aim is to acquire the rights to Ashton's works.I suspect that the hope is that those who were selected for specific gifts will decide to leave their ballets to the Trust rather than being bought by it.The Trust said the first ballet it wanted to acquire was Daphnis and Chloe.

 

The result is that there is no single advocate for Ashton's works and as far as I can see nothing to stop the owners doing what they want with their property from replacing the designs to hiring someone to revise and "improve" their choreography.Ashton's nephew is potentially the most powerful player because of the number of works he owns however the biggest single money spinner has to be Fille which Ashton left to Alexander Grant.Although he worked for the Royal Ballet for a time Ashton's nephew has a background in opera rather than ballet and I have heard him make some strange statements about the revivability of some of the works which he owns.He declared that Dante Sonata was incapable of being revived at the very time it was being reconstructed,while he has dismissed Jazz Calendar as too old fashioned for revival. As interest in Ashton's works increases and Russian ballerinas of a certain age express a desire to appear in Marguerite and Armand his power as a potential advocate grows.But it is quite possible that even if all the works were under the control of one person or organisation their ability to influence the company would not be as great financially as that of Lady MacMillan.However the threat to withdraw the Ashton repertory from the Covent Garden company would deal a significant blow to the company's international reputation.

 

As far as letting Kevin O'Hare know what ballets you think he should revive he has said that he welcomes suggestions. It would appear that he has listened to what people have been suggesting.There is nothing to stop anyone contacting him with their ideas.The strange thing is that I don't think that anyone has noticed that performances of MacMillan ballets look better after the company has been dancing Ashton ballets.Everything is neater, crisper and clean and there is far less emoting and sprawling. I sometimes think that if Lady M had any sense she would insist on the company dancing Ashton as a preparation for performances of her husband's ballets.

Edited by FLOSS
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There are no two ways about it, the Ashton rep is much harder to dance than the Macmillan rep. It is even harder to dance the Ashton rep as Ashton intended, not least at the right speed. I was watching my DVD of the Osipova Fille and I got frustrated at how slowly she took the solo in the Act 2 pas de deux. I also thought Lesley Collier's observations in the extra interview were illuminating.

 

Please may I add A Wedding Bouquet to the list of revitals to be requested.

 

I would normally make my usual observations about the greater amount of Ashton's works that BRB do but I have my reservations about the way some of those are going as well. After the performances of Les Rendezvous last year I am starting to lose my faith there too.

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Ah, Daphnis.  I saw the wonderful Yoshida in this.  :sigh:

 

So did I - at least for the most part.  I think I had a restricted-view seat somewhere and missed her first entrance.  I was going to say "at least she's available on video", but then I realised the recording is of her Scenes de Ballet performance rather than this one.

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