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MAB

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Everything posted by MAB

  1. MAB
    More's the pity.
  2. MAB
    The programme looks fine for an average season but massively disappointing for a 75th anniversary season. Like others here my first thought was where's Etudes? For me ENB suffers from the same problem as the RB, they both have a dazzling back catalogue of master works but choose not to perform them. I would have hoped for a triple bill of some of those gems e.g. Suite en Blanc, Swan Song, perhaps Pat Dolin's Pas de Quatre, he was after all one of the company's co founders. Nutcracker? I've seen better and seen much worse, it does do good business though so I don't see the point in replacing it. As the production seems to have its admirers, I suggest a trip to Budapest where the Eagling version is also performed. You'll Like Budapest, it has no fewer than three ballet venues AND they dance Etudes.
  3. MAB
    I went to the Curzon, Mayfair on Sunday afternoon. A very good turnout and a surprise bonus at the end when Reece Clarke made a personal appearance.for an interview. I've been to a few of these screenings over the years, but it's the first time I've been to one where a member of the cast turned up.
  4. MAB
    I also remember him in Don Q partnering Osipova at her London debut in the role. And who remembers the Mikhailovsky's high camp Spartacus with him in the title role? Seeing Denis Matvienko again must be worth the price of a ticket alone - at least it is for me.
  5. MAB
    I have two tickets available for the 9 pm performance tonight £20 each if anyone is interested
  6. MAB
    I'd like far shorter runs and far more different ballets each season. I would also like many years to elapse before seeing those two ballets again.
  7. MAB
    Just back from a performance of Elijah, a celebration of the human spirit if ever there was one, great art as ever making me briefly forget the negatives in my life. I take a look at Ballet.co and find something so dispiriting and ugly that my euphoria evaporates more rapidly than ice cream in a heat wave. So it isn't enough that Ukrainians are suffering the horrors of war but they must forego any pleasures that remain. It was the wartime tours of British Ballet companies that turned dance into a popular art form in this country, just read Ballet in the Blitz and A Dancer in Wartime. The theatres stayed open regardless of what was raining down on them and people frequently went home from a night out to find their homes a pile of rubble. Ukrainians need distractions too. A new ballet? Just the thing! Perhaps people are now too far removed from the realities of war to understand - unless there are great grandparents around to tell of their memories. Perhaps watching atrocities every night on the telly has dulled any sense of empathy, at least I hope that's the case, rather than a total lack of concern. Sure, medical aid is needed, so are cruise missiles. But if as the pundits say we're on track for WW3 I hope I'm not deprived of culture in what might be my last days.
  8. MAB
    Personally I put any laughter down to alcohol being drunk during the ballet. When I went to a matinee with lots of kids present I heard no laughter whatsoever.
  9. MAB
    You are far from alone in that view.
  10. MAB
    Ashton created a solo from the music of Papillon for Wayne Eagling at a gala, I've never seen it danced since. I wonder what became of it? The choreography looked fiendish though.
  11. MAB
    Sorry Lin, always been the world.s worst typist, in my day we had typing pools for that. I have corrected the blooper.
  12. MAB
    The finest performance I ever saw of Manon was at an ROH prom performance in the 1980;s. The unforgettable cast was Seymour, Eagling and Dowell.
  13. MAB
    After having seen two operas and a ballet, I haven't bothered with the book. I assume DG paid his passage, his father is a nobleman. The reason why he has so little money at the start is because Dad disapproves of his son going into the priesthood. The person who lures him from his vocation is Manon. she succeeds where his father failed. DG forgives her mainly because he is besotted and partly, I assume, because of his strong Christian ethics.
  14. MAB
    I suppose it is the equivalent of creating a musical from all the hits of something that has gone before. Massenet's most performed opera, Werther, doesn't feature in the ballet either. When I started opera going Massenet hardly figured in the repertoire, happily that's not the case any more.
  15. MAB
    The one where Lucia has sexual congress in a cemetery and later sits in a bath of blood? Or perhaps I've missed some other horror being inflicted since?
  16. MAB
    Yes, it did. As to what goes on in opera director's heads, I remember one of them claiming it was an intellectual failing of audiences if they don't appreciate the mad productions. So we're insulted too after sitting through their torrid imaginings. I have a lot of sympathy with those buying listening only seats.
  17. MAB
    Women traders, servants and housewives would though, that's why in other productions you see lively ensemble dancing without harlots. Ashton and Lavrovsky for example did very well without them.
  18. MAB
    It was Die Frau ohne Schatten, brilliant musically, but I've never liked the libretto. Here is an excellent review of what I saw, but as they're avoiding spoilers the reviewer doesn't mention Barak giving birth to the slug. https://operatraveller.com/2023/11/06/futuristic-fantasy-die-frau-ohne-schatten-at-the-staatsoper-stuttgart/
  19. MAB
    I I was comparing it with Massenet's opera. It is an incredibly powerful scene.
  20. MAB
    The production is perfectly watchable by ROH standards, remember it isn't just London that inflicts horrors on its audiences, a few months ago in Germany I had to endure a Strauss opera where a male character gave birth to a giant slug. This Electra is at least easy on the eye.
  21. MAB
    I'd prefer shorter intervals to an earlier start, I'm on a branch line, nice late last train, but the trains are prone to cancellation. We don't all have the luxury of a tube line.
  22. MAB
    There was a lot of ill feeling towards MacMillan from many quarters at the time Manon was created. Some critics pointed out that in the opera the crucial scene is where Manon seduces DG before the altar to join her life of pleasure, and if you know the opera it is hard not to agree. As I find too much padding in the final act, I still wonder why the church scene is omitted. Is the action of Act II set in a brothel? At one time is was simply described as an Hotel Particulier, in other words, a posh town house. In MacMillan's lifetime there was a great deal more variety in interpretations than today. No one has ever matched Dowell as Lescaut as far as I'm concerned, but his was far from being the only unique portrayal. I don't see anything like that today. Likewise Manon is a conniving venal character, not an innocent victim. A great pity the performances of Seymour and Markarova never made it onto film.
  23. MAB
    As far as I can remember no explanation was ever given, it's assumed some men are turned on by girls dressed as boys. I believe the practice among ladies of the oldest profession has some history.
  24. MAB
    Marc Platt
  25. MAB
    Rear stalls are okay, front stalls are another matter as the orchestra pit is so high. Being on the shorter side leg room isn't a problem. Sight lines are.
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