MAB

I have never been to a performance at the Bastille nor at the Garnier and not been handed a cast sheet and that includes performances of the Bejart programme and Dante Project a couple of weeks ago.

Seeing as the ROH cast sheets used to carry up market advertising on the back, I'm surprised they are so ready to forgo a source of revenue.

Very sorry that my thread was so offensive that it was erased.  I think that says it all and therefore I won't be commenting further.

Bye bye

18 minutes ago, Colman said:

 

Oh *please*. Just stop. 

For what it's worth - and I haven't seen it - the view I got from here was that it was a  good effort with some very good bits and some problems that will hopefully be sorted out when it is revised for future productions. A sense of relief that it wasn't awful. A lot of joy at some brilliant performances. Not sure how I got that from 34 pages of undiluted praise. 

And you haven't actually seen it, well. well. 

I actually said "almost undiluted praise"  I would have said entirely undiluted had I not been aware of the odd reservation..

With thirty four pages of almost undiluted praise for the new Swan Lake, I'm wondering if anyone here (like me) didn't actually like it?  Away from these pages opinion has been far more mixed than it appears here.   Does anyone have the nerve to put their head above the parapet and give a different opinion? 

Hope it didn't spoil the evening too much, I went last week and found the outdoor setting with the rustling leaves really enhanced the spookiness.

One of the opera regulars said she is the best Musetta he's ever seen, her acting abilities, sense of fun and wonderful voice all add up to an impressive package.   I loved her, anyone else planning on seeing this La Boheme?  The leads. Agresta and  Polenzani were both good and had a couple of people sitting near me in tears.  Only drawback of this new production for me is the scout hut affair that is supposed to be a Parisian attic, it's too sterile for my liking and why does poor Mimi have to die on the floor?  I would have thought even poor bohemian students sleep on beds.

Do you have atm's?

Not mentioned so far is that banks are closing down everywhere and the CEO of one went on radio and said that post offices would be taking on the work of banks in the future so we should all go there instead.  He didn't mention that post offices are closing at an even faster rate than banks.

This production which btw is available on line for another couple of days, is heavy on sleaze.  Goro sells very young girls to American servicemen in sham marriages, the girls are basically 'comfort women'.  In this production fifteen year old  Butterfly's friends are in school uniform adding to the disquiet.  I don't condone the booing but in this particular production, which I consider excellent, I think the audience was drawn into the story more forcibly than in other versions I've seen and reacted accordingly.

Hard luck on Guerrero, a tenor I very much want to hear more of.  It's a role the greats record but few have performed and the really good Pinkertons tend to sing the role early in their careers.

Yes, curtain calls.  I'll be interested in seeing the response to Ptolemy at my next visit.  Alcohol is always consumed at Glyndebourne, but although I've seen a production booed, it's the first time I've seen a character booed.

I have to admit to being taken aback by the barrage of booing aimed at Pinkerton at Glyndebourne earlier this week, Goro got a couple of isolated boos as well..  All the more undeserved as Joshua Guerrero was one of the best Pinkertons I've ever seen.  He took it in good part. staying in character and playing up to the audience.  Last night at ROH arch villainess Ortrud did not get booed.

Is Pinkerton opera's biggest villain?  I tend to think he is because of his duplicity.  If you take another Puccini villain, Baron Scarpio, he is what he is and makes no secret of his villainy.  I'd be interested in knowing other views on opera's bad guys (and girls) also if booing is appropriate in an opera such as Butterfly.

41 minutes ago, RuthE said:

The first time I saw a Swan Lake with a prologue was at ENB and it made such a difference to the storytelling for me.  ENB's production remains my favourite of this ballet.

I believe it was Bourmeister who first introduced a prologue into Swan Lake and there was a very beautiful one in Robert Helpmann's RB  production of the 1960's, Konstantine Sergeyev used one in the Soviet film with Evteyeva too, so as RuthE says, hardly a novelty.  How effective it is depends on the staging, I think it helps for Odette to have attendants, otherwise where do her sympathetic Swan maidens come from?. 

13 hours ago, jmhopton said:

Also something that has just occurred to me, if Siegfried's father has died surely he is now king? Or is he too young and his mother is acting as a sort of Regent figure? But surely there can't be a power vacuum and  it can't be realistically filled by Von Rothbart however much he would like it to be?

He's not of age, it's his 21st remember, so presumably about to become king and I assume his mother is regent, or perhaps like George III his father is in some way incompetent.  On the other hand the title usually goes to the son on his father's death as with baby Henry VI.  Like Tom Stoppard I've always had a problem with why 30 year old Hamlet wasn't king instead of Claudius.

The conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, was probably best known in Britain for his work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Formerly married to ballerina Nina Timofeyeva, he began his career conducting ballet at the Bolshoi.  He has died at the age of eighty seven. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44505749

The handing out of honours to dancers has in many cases seemed to me rather arbitrary, could the current dearth have something to do with fewer principals being British? 

I think Doreen Wells, the current dowager Marchioness of Londonderry holds the loftiest title for a dancer, but of course John Gilpin married a princess, albeit a foreign one.  Another male dancer used to be in a long term relationship with a baroness, but sadly they never made it to the altar.   I can't think of a dancer holding any sort of hereditary title other than through marriage though.

I think the problem with Harlequinade is that it hasn't any real performance history in Britain even though John Gilpin used to dance it decades ago,  The piece works best when it goes beyond archness into outright camp, anyone who ever saw the Panovs dance it will know what I mean.  In some ways, like the William Tell pas de deux, it is a good choice as it isn't standard gala fare and gives the audience something a bit different, but sadly so difficult for younger dancers to pull off.  Although Precious Adams wasn't ideal in it, I loved her modern solo and thought it one of the highlights of the evening.  I also loved Giorgio Garrett, what a personality, a very unique asset to the company in my view,

2 hours ago, alison said:

I'm sure you could.  Just as you could presumably deduce that Hernandez was the true winner and the other a sop to the juror who clearly nominated him.

Whoever nominated Lantratov wasn't in a relationship with him.

On ‎07‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 09:03, MrZee said:

  It is disheartening that some posters, presumably having no direct knowledge of the voting process under discussion, would lodge accusations of unethical behaviours.  Indeed, it is not uncommon for judges, to avoid conflict of interest allegations, to recuse themselves in the affected vote.  Absent first-hand, factual information on this year's Benois competition, is it fair to assert "if you are on the jury, you vote"? 

Occasionally jurors on ballet competitions do spill the beans.  The late Alexander Grant once gave a talk where he touched on his own experience as a juror, on that occasion all nominees were Russians with links to all other jurors, Mr Grant was less than impressed and put forward a video of a French dancer that had particularly impressed him.  So superior was his choice, that she won. 

On ‎07‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 13:52, fromthebalcony said:

I was not familiar with Lantratov.  It turns out he is Alexandrova's significant other.

So?  Alexandrova wasn't a juror, what is the relevance of mentioning her relationship with Lantratov? 

Can we deduce from the joint award that Lantratov was the true winner and the other a sop to the juror who clearly nominated him?

I've taken stacks of pics over the years, but only of Russians, I've simply asked and so far never been refused, only a slight problem at the Opera Garnier when photographing the Bolshoi in '91.  Of course, you need some basic Russian to ask in the fist place, but their friendliness always trumps rules (if any actually exist).

That was a crash pad, his home was in East Sheen.

Worth mentioning that Nureyev was actually resident in London for many years, at the very least he should have a blue plaque.

According to one od those 'royal correspondents' religious addresses  must be a minimum of two minutes and no more than seven.  Personally I enjoy a good sermon, but church pews are hard on the bum so perhaps a maximum time isn't a bad idea.

1 hour ago, Ian Macmillan said:

 

Elsewhere, Dance coverage in the Evening Standard has visibly shrunk in the past year, I'd say. 

You're quite right, since the paper became a freebie, arts coverage in the standard has shrunk, but particularly under the present editor.  I don't know how far back you go, but I remember Sydney Edwards, possible the best arts editor any newspaper ever had, he loved the ballet and actually embedded himself with the Royal Ballet on one of the tours to the US, actually reporting from their plane mid air on the flight over.  Happy days.

Details of the gala in Vienna next month https://viennaoperatickets.com/ballet-all-performances/nureyev-gala-vienna-state-opera/?p=53&l=2&id=1090 

Legris also staged a gala in Nureyev's honour in Tokyo earlier this month.