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All this sounds absolutely fascinating. And isn't it so the world over that prizes for anything are often subject to politics or whoever is in favour with any particular body at anyone time? Isn't it often the way that some people get credit for being the "1st" in their field when in actual fact they've been preceded by other lower profile groups?

 

Really enjoy these posts Angela as its a reminder of the huge dance community out there- so many peoples knowledge is restricted to just the main big names(eg Bolsoi. Paris Opera, RB etc) .

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I just count the Netherlands in as I cannot find any other subject to Wheeldon's Cinderella in Amsterdam. We will be going to the premiere. Anyone else going ?

 

I will be attending the Saturday matinee on 15 December. I'm looking forward to the performance (and après-ballet dinner at Greetje - one of my favorite restaurants).

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Back from a great time in Munich. As ever The Bavarian State Ballet did not disappoint. As mentioned before my son dances for the company so I do not feel comfortable doing a "real" review. However a few impressions.:-)

 

This was a triple bill entitled "Forever Young" The 3 pieces were

"Broken Fall" Russel Maliphant/ Barry Adamson. This piece premiered at ROH Dec 2003. The BSB first performed it at The Prinzregenten Theatre in January 2012.

 

This is a piece performed by 2 male and 1 female dancer. The performance I saw was Lucia Lacarra, her debut in this role, Marlon Dino and Erik Murzagaliyev.

 

By overall impression was this is very much everything one would expect of Maliphant. The music is quite harsh and the dance is a continual reaction between the 3 dancers. There are alot of lifts, releasing etc. I believe this was first choreographed for Sylvie Guillem. It is not a piece I knew but did have the same "feel" as his later"Push"

 

"The Moor's Pavanne" José Limon/ Purcell, Simon Sadoff. Premiered in Connecticut August 1949. Premiered in Munich 17th Nov 2012.

 

This, of course, is a short "Othello" based dance. 4 dancers The Moor Léonard Engel, His Wife, Ilana Werner, The friend, Lukás Slavicky, His wife Emma Barrowman.

 

The Purcell music is so familiar one feels totally at home even if one does not know the dance. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It needs excellent acting to impart the tragedy and treachery. This it had.

 

"Choreartium" Leonide Massine/Brahmes. Premiered at The Alhambra Theatre London Oct 1933. Premiered in Munich 17th Nov 2012.

 

Again one I have never seen. The beautiful music sweeps one through the beautiful dancing. A much larger cast, with a mix of large groups, solo, duet and smaller groups all performing to an extremely high level. Again I do feel unable to comment on individuals but the piece just flew by with total enjoyment.

 

I do apologise that this isn't a proper review and hopefully others who get to see it can do better. All the ballet I have seen in Munich has been of a very high standard and enjoyable. Both theatres are beautiful. The audiences a joy, who genuinely know and love the dance. Anyone who wants a trip to Munich try to take in the ballet.

 

Julie Milner

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Is it a very different version of The Nutcracker? There's no Clara, no Nutcracker and no SPF.

Yes it is very different. For a long time it was the version performed in Winnipeg, where I grew up. I was 12 the first time I saw it and when I heard the RWB was doing a Nutcracker for the first time I had such visions of snowflakes dancing in my head from my first live ballet experience which was London Festival Ballet's Nut when I was 6.

TOTAL DISMAY: NO SNOWFLAKES in Neumeier's Nut! I CRIED.

However, subsequently I grew to love it. His "snowflake" scene is replaced by a scene like a Degas ballet studio, ballerinas in white Degas tutus with velvet chokers.

Beautiful grand pas de deux.

Structurally much like ordinary Nuts. I actually love the way Neumeier rethinks the classics. I adore his Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake too.

DEFINITELY worth watching. It's a free live stream!

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Two ballet directors had their contracts renewed in the last days:

 

At Ballett am Rhein, Swiss choreographer Martin Schläpfer will stay until 2019, thus disproving rumours in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he might leave for Berlin State Ballet, where Vladimir Malakhov’s time seems to be running out. The Ballet on the Rhine, dancing in the theatres at Düsseldorf and Duisburg, will get a new ballet centre at Düsseldorf to improve the training and rehearsal situation for the 48 dancers.

 

Former Stuttgart principal dancer Birgit Keil will stay at Karlsruhe until 2016, her company is now called Karlsruhe State Ballet. Keil has directed the company with 30 dancers since 2003, she is also director of the Mannheim Dance Academy. Karlsruhe Ballet was the first German company to show Kenneth MacMillan’s „Romeo and Juliet“, they also have Christopher Wheeldon’s „Swan Lake“ and some classics by Peter Wright in their repertory.

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Rumours keep getting louder and louder that Vladimir Malakhov's contract as director of Berlin State Ballet will not be renewed and that his successcor may be a Spanish choreographer working at St. Petersburg.

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Konstanze Vernon, former Munich prima ballerina (1963-1980) and first director of the Bavarian State Ballet (1988 - 1998), died yesterday at a hospital in Munich after a short illness. She was 74 years old. She was also head of the Heinz Bosl Foundation, named after her famous partner Heinz Bosl who died very young. The foundation works closely with the Ballet Academy at Munich. Vernon founded the Bavarian State Ballet II, the first Junior Company in Germany.

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Press Release from Berlin State Ballet (not online yet, sorry): Vladimir Malakhov will not renew his contract as director of the company after season 2013/14. He has directed the company, which reunited the three dance companies of the three Berlin opera houses, since 2004.

A German article in Die Welt, which says at the end that one of the most likely candidates for the job is one „Nacho Duarto“ from Catalonia, „who directs the currently not very reliable Mikhailovsky Ballet" B)



Ed. for typo

 



 

Edited by Angela
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From Twitter: Cathy Marston has been in Gelsenkirchen today for some preliminary work on a commission, Orpheus, for the city theatre's small company run by (ex?) Stuttgart ballerina Bridget Breiner.  It appears to be part of a Stravinsky-themed bill, along with A Soldier's Tale by Czech choreographer Jiri Bubenicek, starting in June this year.  

 

http://www.musiktheater-im-revier.de/Spielplan/Ballett/GeschichteVomSoldaten/ 

 

(She was also in Estonia last week, for a purpose not disclosed - maybe a well-deserved holiday.)

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Ian, yes, she is ex-Stuttgart, but no ex-ballerina - she quit Stuttgart Ballett last year to become ballet director of the small company at Gelsenkirchen. She made a new Cinderella for them recently, and she still dances.

Jiri Bubenicek is a former Neumeier principal who now dances at Dresden Semper Opera Ballet (his twin brother Otto is still with Neumeier). Bubenicek started choreographing some years ago.

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News from Berlin: several German news sources confirm Nacho Duato as the new AD of Berlin State Ballet, succeding Vladimir Malakhov in 2014. This is not official yet, a press conference will be held on Thursday. Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz on the other hand, who was suggested by one newspaper as a possible successor to Malakhov (which would have brought about a complete change of the State Ballet to a contemporary company) declared she wants to leave Berlin with her company because of severe money problems.

The first comments on Duato are disastrous: "this would mean the arrival of a shallow, compliant modernism which surely would please the new, sleek money/consumption/investors spirit of this town" (Deutschlandfunk).

 

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Another hostile remark about Duato from the Süddeutsche Zeitung:

"For the Catalan, who is Artistic Director of the Mikhailovsky Ballet at St. Petersburg at the moment, the Berlin appointment would be some kind of last exit: His current employer, the oligarch Kekhman, is broke, with the prosecutor on his tail – is there anything better that could happen to Duato than an offer from the Western comfort zone? We have reason to doubt if this is true for both sides."

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