Sim Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 There was a change sheet, Coated, saying that Yasmine was ill. I agree with what you said, it was a wonderful performance by everyone tonight. I will write more tomorrow. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 I'll miss the little evil minions Plural? There was one missing on Tuesday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Plural? There was one missing on Tuesday. On Tursday my son was taken ill just before Act III and couldn't go on. They had already sent the cover home so they had to go ahead with just one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 I hope he is feeling better now, Neil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Yes much better thanks. I think the heavy costume and mask contributed. He was extremely disappointed to have missed the end of his final performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Oh dear Glad he's feeling better now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Am away for a couple of days so on VERY restricted wifi access so will report on Thursdays Swan Lake when get back but as I expected Steven McRae didn't disappoint (he replaced Muntagirov) I loved his Siegfried and thoroughly enjoyed the whole performance in fact......though I did get into a fit of giggles with a young man sitting next to me over Von Rothbart and his strange costume. Just to quickly say the PDT was Yuhui Choe Anna Rose O Sullivan and Tristran Dyer though my cast sheet did say Yasmin Naghdi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmie Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 After all the earlier talk here about the pas de trois, please can anyone report who danced it on the 7th and 9th April and how it was. As said above the PDT on the 9th was Yuhui Choe, Tristan Dyer and Anna Rose O'Sullivan. It was a perfectly acceptable PDT but none of the three PDT I have seen this run have really thrilled me as much as I would like. I thought Tristan Dyer was interesting, his grand jete en tournant were lovely and his tours around the stage were the only ones of the three PDT where the dancer made a complete circle – they usually seem to run out of room around the bench Siegfried is sitting on. His tours en l’air were not so good as his landings were not facing front. The Mariinsky PDT and the two ENB PDTs I saw last year were all much more exciting. (Ps I think I got the names of the steps right – please correct me if not ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capybara Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 (edited) The Mariinsky PDT and the two ENB PDTs I saw last year were all much more exciting. Exactly! I think that I saw 5 ENB pdts (!) All were very good indeed; most were really exciting on the part of the male dancers (Cesar Corrales and Jinhao Zhang among them) It rather troubles me that several of us have had continuing cause to be critical of the RB in this respect this season. They should be leading the field. Edited April 11, 2015 by capybara 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nina G. Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 LinMM: "Just to quickly say the PDT was Yuhui Choe Anna Rose O Sullivan and Tristran Dyer though my cast sheet did say Yasmin Naghdi". You must have missed the Cast change slip It was announced that due to illness Yasmine Naghdi was unable to perform the Pd3 and Yuhui Choe replaced her. Such a shame for her to have had to miss the very last (Dowell) Swan Lake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aileen Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 From memory, the stage in the RB's Swan Lake is rather cluttered and that may inhibit or restrict the dancers a bit. The swan corps in particular looks rather cramped. The RB seems to go for elaborate sets in many of its productions and I feel that pared back sets which don't intrude on the stage so much and fewer props in the form of seating, fountains etc would give the dancers more room. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLOSS Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 I am not sure that I want to see an "exciting" pas de trois in Swan Lake.What I want to see is one that is danced apparently effortlessly with an impeccable sense of style, neat clean landings by the man and a clear contrast between the two female variations.If anyone is interested in what I mean about the difference between the two female variations the DVD of the previous Royal Ballet production with Dowell and Markarova leading the cast and Conley and Whitten in the pas de trois will show you what I am talking about. In the dim and distant past the company used to cast the pas de trois in Swan Lake and the Fairy Variations in Sleeping Beauty with greater care for suitability and contrast than they do now when the whole casting process seems to be conducted on a more democratic basis. It means that more dancers get a chance to show what they can do and, in some cases, what they can't do.Both approaches have their advantages and their disadvantages.The selective approach operates with a small pool of dancers. It guarantees a certain level of performance;it provides the possibility of exemplar casts and a definite hierarchy of casts.The democratic approach is a bit more of a gamble as far as the audience is concerned as it often means a degree of proximate casting.I am not entirely convinced that it is that beneficial to the company as a whole.It certainly gives greater opportunity to individual dancers but it does not provide any guarantee that any cast that we see is exceptionally good let alone exemplary. I think that the closest we get to the company indicating who they regard as the best in subsidiary roles in such ballets is when these ballets are shown in the cinema. It would be very interesting to know who the company casts in the pas de trois and other subsidiary roles when it goes on tour.I suspect that the casting is far less democratic and more obviously directed towards showcasing those dancers who are best suited to the roles than we are accustomed to see at Covent Garden. As far as ENB is concerned, I suspect that they show us their very best casts in minor roles when in London and that the Mariinsky do the same.The ENB dancers in the pas de trois were, for me, too obviously trying to impress. There was nothing effortless about their dancing, and the men gave me the impression that they thought that they were auditioning for the Bluebird. Despite the fact that the Mariinsky also dance the Petipa text when they perform Swan Lake their text for the pas de trois is not exactly the same as the one danced by the Royal Ballet which makes it difficult to make a direct comparison. Given the number of performances of Swan Lake in the run I do not think that the company did too badly as far as the pas de trois was concerned. They seemed able to field a greater number of casts for the pas de trois than for the Neapolitan Dance. I have to say I found O'Sullivan pretty impressive in her second outing in the pas de trois. She danced well, her performance projected up to the Amphitheatre and she used her eyes to show the audience where to look, an old fashioned trick but one that still works. Choe's performance by contrast was small and self contained.Somehow, for me, she neither draws the audience in nor projects out. I can't fault the way in which she reproduces the steps that she has been taught but for me there should be a significant difference between reproducing steps and dancing them in the theatre. So now we must wait until Wednesday to find out what the coming season holds for us.We might even find out when the new Swan Lake will be unveiled and whether Liam Scarlett will stage it.As it is nearly thirty years since the Dowell production was first performed a whole generation has grown up for whom this is the only Royal Ballet version that they have known.I wonder whether the new production will be the radical reworking that some seem to favour or whether it will remain true to the choreographic text preserved by the company for so long.But there again merely changing the familiar production may see radical to some. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 Lauren Cuthbertson's fond (I presume) farewell to the production: https://twitter.com/LondonBallerina/status/586334018230231041 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmie Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 If anyone is interested in what I mean about the difference between the two female variations the DVD of the previous Royal Ballet production with Dowell and Markarova leading the cast and Conley and Whitten in the pas de trois will show you what I am talking about. I am very interested in your insights FLOSS, I am a relatively new ballet watcher and your posts do help with my appreciation. The Swan Lake pas de trois is one of my favourite pieces of ballet and I will watch the Conley/Whitten pas de trois this evening to see if I can see what you mean. (Looking at my ENB cast lists for last year to see who danced their Pas de Trois I noticed the name of Michael Coleman as The Tutor and I do believe he is the third member of the Conley/Whitten pas de trois). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Well it already seems an age ago but last Thursday went to see Swan Lake. This was the somewhat jinxed performance which should have been Cuthbertson and Muntagirov but was danced by McRae and Salenko. I don't know whether it was because I haven't been to a Swan Lake for three years(I had thought it was two years ago) and I was sitting in a particularly good seat in the Stalls Circle but I thoroughly enjoyed it! I thought McRae was a really excellent Siegfried as he seemed to bring so much life even a touch of playfulness to the role and he just gives so much on stage .....he must be great to dance with! And after all Siegfried is a character who is prepared to sacrifice himself to be with his love ......so there should be evidence of some passion there and McRae had it in abundance. Salenko was beautiful and elegant rather than passionate though the role demands some reserve as she is not convinced she can find someone to release her from the spell. So there has to be some suspicion on her part but I felt Salenko could have let go a bit more eventually so as to make the betrayal that much more poignant. However her dancing was beautiful and superb especially in the "black" Act.....so very satisfying on that level. On Thursday I thought all the supporting roles were really well done including the "infamous" pas de trois. Yuhui Choe and Anna Rose O Sullivan are very different dancers. O Sullivan has wonderful ballon and is a very light in the air sort of dancer. Yuhui Choe has a very graceful and soft style and I really liked her in this. She sometimes doesn't project that well but on Thursday I thought she did in a very unfussy and charming way. She seemed fairly relaxed and to be enjoying herself. Dyer always seems to give his all so I thought this PDT was extremely watchable! In the waltz which again was danced with a great deal of energy I found my eye being drawn to two dancers in particular ......and again very different in style .....one was Francesca Hayward who uses her upper body and head so well and has such attack ...lovely to see and the other was someone I wasn't familiar with so had to look her up when I got home.....this turned out to be Gina Storm Jensen. All of the others danced well but I kept being drawn to these two in particular that evening. All the set dances in Act three were well danced and I didn't sense a "tired" dancer among them so perhaps because it was the last performance everyone was pulling out the stops so to speak. There was a bit of a mishap with the tambourine in the Neopolitan(James Hay and Francesca Hayward) but this was turned to some humorous advantage in regaining possession so didn't detract one bit. The two swans danced by Melissa Hamilton and Itziar Mendizabal both danced their variations very well .. .....I almost didn't recognise who they were at first as they blended into the corps of swans so well.......(this is a compliment!!) ....as both these dancers have a very strong individual presence on stage usually but they got the ambience of their performances just right I thought. I still love the ending to this production much more satisfying than the end to the current ENB one in my opinion ......a dramatic send off to that glorious lilting music ....but I must admit the one letdown .......and not the dancers fault ....was Von Rothbart!! He just wasn't scary or evil enough for me! And how could anybody be in THAT costume. Poor Alistair Marriott as it was on this occasion. I got into conversation with a very young man sitting next to me and it became a bit of a joke between us. He said maybe he gets scarier later on but everytime he checked with me ...in the end just with a look ....and of course we got into fits of giggles especially once full attention to the costume had been drawn!! He didn't rate this Von Rothbart as very evil either and both of us wanted to be a bit scared!! Anyway I loved it and got a lot out of the whole performance in general ......but perhaps the secret of enjoying the Swan Lakes and Sleeping Beauties is not to go too often. But then I keep forgetting .... I am fairly ancient ...if you are new to ballet watching you probably can't get enough of them both!!! I did queue for 13 hours once for Sleeping Beauty so have had my fair share of crazy moments ....but will look forward to my next Swan Lake in a couple of years especially if danced as well as this. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 I was there too Lin but just haven't had time to post up. I now don't need to because I agree with just about everything you say (with the exception of Tristan Dyer in the pdt....he is an excellent dancer but I didn't feel his presence here at all; he had no height to his jumps; also, when Yuhui in particular was standing in front of him on pointe you couldn't see him, which I know isn't his fault. I just wasn't feeling it that night). As far as Von Rothbart is concerned, I am absolutely amazed that this final performance wasn't given to Gary Avis as he is the only one, IMHO, who has really projected that sense of evil and control that the character needs to make the spell understandable and believable. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 Do you think Von Rothbarts costume in this production detracted from the role......or is it just me making excuses for perhaps some not so good coaching of the dancers for this role? It may have been elaborately designed in itself but that doesn't necessarily make it suitable. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 Agree Gary Avis, illustrating the old saying about being able to act one's way out of a paper bag, managed to make something of an almost impossible role. Not just the costume- though an enormous heap of feathers and what look like old dishcloths was a hindrance, but the role itself. Once you've flapped the wings menacingly a few times, and lurked behind a bush there is not a lot left to do. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beryl H Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 The DVD and Blu-Ray of the cinema relay are available for pre-order on the ROH shop website for 1st June, must be the quickest ever release! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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